I'm a female student, almost 15 years old and I HAVE REALLY TERRIBLE ACNE. A lot of acne scars, deep clogged pores and freakin loads of whiteheads. Decided to opt for the retin-a treatment. I did some research before getting myself two small tubes (0.025% strength) for $16. It would have been $50+ for already two tubes if I were to get it from a doctor here in Singapore. So I used a Cetaphil Gentle Cleanser recommended by some people here before waiting for another 25/30mins and applying the tretinoin. Applied moisturiser for the first two nights before realising that it does nothing. [BTW, applying the cream was like applying a regular cream. No stinging/irritation. This continued for almost a week where I DO NOT EXPERIENCE REDNESS, PEELING/BREAKOUTS LIKE OTHERS CLAIM TO. My skin was still the same. I could also be outside with the sun facing at me without experiencing terrible sunburn and no sunblock/moisturiser with SPF is needed at all! What is happening? Is there something wrong with my skin or is it the RETIN A? [BTW, the retin-a isn't expired, the seller who sold it to me got it recently from somewhere in THAILAND]

I have been using tretinoin on and off since 6th grade. I have only used 0.025% and while it has prevented my skin from getting much worse, it hasn't actually helped get rid of my acne. I am now a high school freshman and I think I'll give accutane a whack after trying every product under the sun.

Hi everyone! I am writing on behalf of my 16 year old daughter who would never in a million years write a review herself! But I have to say that this product has been the bane of my existence for the last year+. But I have a very head strong daughter who somehow has it in her head that she should keep using it. The background is that like most teens, around 13, my beautiful fair skinned (blue eyes, blond hair) daughter started breaking out. We immediately started trying everything, first Proactive for a while but there was literally no change at all with that stuff. After about 2 months on Proactive, she stopped altogether and just started using bar soap. One day she asked me to go to the dermatologist - I think she had been talking to someone at school about it. So we went and they prescribed Retin A. I was 100% against a prescription of any type but I was better with a topical prescription than an oral antibiotic. she started with Tretinoin 0.025%. Again, there was no visible change in her acne but there was a visible change in her face. Her pores all over her face got much larger, so that I could see them from 5+ feet away and I started noticing scarring which, as a mom, I absolutely hate to see. Around that same time, my younger daughter, who was now 13, began to get acne as well but had heard of another product at her school called Ninja Skincare. As kids do, she wanted to do what her friends were doing so we bought it. It was very affordable and had incredible customer service so I was pretty impressed. Her acne went away in a heartbeat. Literally within a month it was entirely gone. Obviously, I was pressing my older daughter to try it too but she wasn't having it. She blindly believed that the doctors should know the best and wanted to go the route of the dermatologist. Sorry - long story short, we continued with Retin-A because that is what the dr told her to do. But the doctor didn't tell us about the side effects even after we asked about the pores and the scarring. I should have done more of my homework. The breaking point was when we went on a family trip to Mexico over Thanksgiving and even with sunscreen, her face turned BEET red to the point where strangers on the beach came up to me and pointed it out and suggested I get her out of the sun. I had no idea what was happening. We went home and iced her face, put aloe vera on it and her face remained burnt for over a week, sensitive to the touch. I felt so bad for her. Needless to say, the beach trip was completely ruined for her which sucked but at least she finally agreed that Retin-A was a bad choice for her. Now after about 4 months on Ninja, she is entirely clear and her scars from that period are starting to face with the help of Salicylic acid every day. I have read all of the reviews here and am happy that some people got relief from this product but I honestly don't understand why it worked for some people without these horrific side effects while for others it doesn't? I guess everyone has their own sky types. I am just glad we are finished with the prescriptions and dermatologists!

My dermatologist put me on Retin A for keritosis pilaris on my face and it wasn't too bad before. I had around 3 - 5 little bumps on my face that came and sometimes I even had none. Well I wanted to fix the bumps anyways so my dermatologist put me on Retin A. This broke me out so bad, but I kept using it because I was told it would get worse before it got better. Well, then my skin started peeling and it was red and inflamed and painful. And now my face is covered in the little bumps and cystic acne - and I NEVER had acne before using this medication! It looks terrifying - my face has never been this bad before! There's little to no smooth surface on my face, it's just tiny little bumps and giant red cystic pimples all over my face. I've been using it for almost 4 months now and I don't see it getting any better from here. I would rather deal with what I had before.

Hello All! I posted a few weeks ago and now I am updatng you with my results. I have been on tretinoin .025% for 6 weeks now. My skin is honestly about 80% cleared. I had acne on my forehead, both cheeks, and neck area. My forehead is clear, my neck is clear, and my left cheek is completely clear. I have 3 pimples on my right cheek that came up after I used sunscreen for a couple days as I was out in the sun. I shaved with a single blade razor yesterday and relaized my face is super soft and very smooth. I think tretinoin is a miracle cure for me. I had a bad initial breakout. The initial breakout started in week 2 and continued all the way through week 5. I am over the intitial breakup and I think my face has come a long way. My advice is to stick with it! ALl good things take time and if there was some way to get rid of acne in 2 weeks then I wouldn;t trust it. This stuff really works. My acne is mainly gone, but I do have some darker spots. I never had acne scars that were indented or anything, but I had the post inflammatory hyperpigmentation. I am hoping that this will go away by week 8. I'm used to waking up every morning and having at least 2 or 3 new piples everyday, I litrally have not had a pimple on my forehead, left cheek, or neck in over a week. Once my right cheek clears up I think I will be totally clear and my confidence is already starting to come back. Give it time! My face got much worse looking for a span of 2-3 weeks but trust me it will be worth it. I am 6 weeks in and I can't wait to see what I look like after 10 weeks.

So I have been struggling with mild acne since I was a sophomore in high school (I am now a senior about to graduate in a few months) and have had it pretty under control with the occasional break out. I had been using proactiv for about a year now and have only seen very mild improvement. In November 2016 I had a bad break out and finally decided to go to the dermatologist. I wasn't able to get an appointment anytime soon so I went to my family doctor to see if he could schedule me an appointment which he did for late December. In the mean time he prescribed me Retin-a gel .01% and doxycycline pills to take once a day. Before taking these drugs I read reviews online and saw YouTube videos about the results and they looked pretty good so I decided to try it out. A lot of these reviews have talked about an initial breakout or "purging stage" when using tretinoin or retin-a but I had no idea how bad t would be for me. My face went from having a few pimples to my entire face being covered in acne for about a month and a half to two months. I'm late December I finally saw the dermatologist and she told me to use less of the retin-a (I was only supposed to use a pea sized amount but wasn't, hoping to see faster results... bad idea.) She also bumped my retin-a to a .025% cream and prescribed me clindamyacin phosphate at 2%. I have been using these products for about two months now and have definitely seen my face clear up. I now longer have any active acne, only the occasional pimple which I get about once every week and a half to ever two weeks which is a lot better than what I would get while using proactiv as I would get a new pimple every other day or so. I have stopped using the doxycycline now and only have scarring left from my purging stage. My dermatologist has now recommended me to use a dermaroller at 1.0mm to help with the scarring. I hope to be free from acne by the time of my graduation in 2 months. Retin-a has completely changed my face for the better as I am now acne free :)))

I used Retin-A quite some time ago but never got past my first tube. It's compleatly to be expected to have some irritation and flaky skin and well as nasty breakouts for the first few weeks to a few months when trying a strong prescription acne drug such as Retin-A. However, it may be a little less normal to start using it and than days later being in enough pain that you start crying in class beacause your face hurts and having to go home. Okay, so I may be a little bit of a wimp but it was way worse than the 'minor irritation' my dermatologist had described. Imagine the warm stinging feeling you get putting on moisturizer after exfoliating or after a blackhead mask. Now imagine that but four to seven times worse and for hours. It sucked. Overall though I think my dermatologist jumped the gun by having me use a very high dose of Retin-A as my first hardcore acne treatment without having ever seen my reactions to different products before. Retin-A works very well for some people and not so well for others. I think that is most people start at a low dose and work their way up to using it every day or every other day they will probably have positive results. Just keep one thing in mind: just beacause you have bad acne or similar oily skin doesn't mean you should be tough back to your face. All skin-types can be sensitive so treat yours carefully and be cautious with acne mess like Retin-A.

It worked at first put then my dermatologist upped me to a higher dose and it just made my sensitive skin way too irritated!

I have used Retin-A cream for roughly two years now and it has really helped with the scarring on my face from previous break-outs. When I first began using the cream, my face broke out so tremendously for two reasons: the first is that Retin-A is designed to bring out all the clogged acne under your skin, this could take months, and I also stopped tanning at the same time, so I didn't have the UV exposure killing the bacteria on my face anymore. My doctor told me that acne is primarily caused by only two factors: hormones and genetics, and unfortunately topical treatments by themselves will rarely give you flawless skin. Benzoyl washes help kill bacteria ON the face, but for most people like me, the real problem lies beneath the skin! After about a year of Retin-A use, I finally paired it with doxycycline and it was honestly a miracle for me! Retin-A is really a pain as far as drying out skin, but believe me when I say the good definitely outweighs the bad. I worked my way up to 0.1% but use what works for you since I have combination/oily skin. It's worth a try!

First I'd like to say that I have been struggling with acne and acne scars for about 8 years now; I am an avid makeup wearer because nothing seems to work for my skin, and makeup gives me the self-confidence I lack. I would also like to say that this is not my first Retin-A rodeo. I was first introduced to it when I was about 16 by my dermatologist, who also prescribed that I take Doxycycline, use Clindamycin pads, and apply Benzoyl Peroxide to my face daily. This cocktail of prescriptions worked very well for me if I recall correctly, I think I just had to stop using them because my family couldn't afford it. (Having clear skin is so expensive *sigh*) Fast forward 3 years later and my mom takes me to the dermatologist as a Christmas present, and he suggested that I use, you guessed it, Retin-A once again. Whoopee. Alongside a prescription for Minocycline, and Clindamycin (in the lotion form this time). Yesterday night I started putting this concoction on my face and today I woke up with a face full of pimples and flaking skin. What a great life I lead. My dermatologist wanted me to apply it two times every day, so today I woke up, washed my face and slathered that sh*t right on. I put on my makeup and went about my day. When I came home, I saw that my face had peeled through my makeup (It doesn't get any sexier than this folks). I totally forgot that my skin is crazy sensitive and quite frail right now and so when I pulled out my Spin for Perfect Skin Spin Brush and tried to exfoliate the peeling skin away, I instead ended up removing a large portion of skin from the lower left-hand side of my face; very near to my mouth. My whole face burns right now, and I know it's my fault for being careless, but gosh darn it why me. I say don't use this cream/gel if you wear makeup everyday like me or can't stand the sight of peeling skin (because you're not supposed to do anything about it, you're just supposed to let it happen and wash your face with a gentle cleanser). It works but at a cost.