Retinol in Neutrogena - Anyone know just how much?
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free skin care · Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:05 am

Neutrogena will not tell me. Seriously. I called them yesterday.

Not having used retinols in a shamefully long time, I started with Remergent's Progressive Retinol cream which is 0.4%, but I definitely need something a little lower as training wheels. Unless I'm really bad at math (actually, I am) and 0.4% is the same as .04%?

Decided to start using Neutrogena's Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle Intensive cream. I've been using that, and the eye-cream version, and like it - no redness, there is some peeling but it's doesn't seem as strong as Remergent's 0.4%. This cream has hyaluronic acid and some other nice things, and is very highly rated on MUA.

Somewhere on the EDS boards, I copied and saved this about it, too:

"Neutrogena is one of the best OTC retinol products so good choice! It has .04%-.07% retinol and high conc. of green tea too. A lot of OTC retinols are actually not formulated correctly (ex. certain esters used for moisturizing reduce efficacy of product etc). This was according to the textbook Cosmetic Dermatology and she said Neutrogena was stable and well formulated."

All well and good. My skin tolerates and even likes it, but I would like to know what retinol percentage/strength this Neutrogena cream is. How do I find that out?

I called their 1-800 number on the packaging, and asked. Phone support droid looked the product up in his "database" after I read off the numbers beneath the barcode, and he said that information wasn't even in his info database and that it's proprietary.

HUH? I insisted that's ridiculous and that I could buy any number of skin care products that clearly list what percentage of retinol in them. He cared not. (I might have also said something about a high horse, and used a few bad words before I hung up the phone, but I don't recall exactly.) (Keeding!)

As opposed to dealing with a retinol or Retin A prescription, or buying it from an online pharmacy, I like this stuff because it's apparently quite well made, I can buy it at Rite Aid and it looks like the tube will last me a year. Yes, I'm prone to sloth.

So help me, lovely EDS peeps - any idea how/where to track down the exact percentage of retinol in specific Neutrogena products? Not knowing is really bugging me. Brick wall

free skin care · Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:51 am

Hi, caboodle.
I can see your frustration, but I think it's not unusual for manufacturers to keep the concentration of ingredients in their creams as a trade secret.

I am taking a wild guess here, but I believe it might be correct that the concentration of retinol in the Neutrogena cream is far lower than the 0.4 %, 0.5 % and 1 % that you find in the most concentrated retinol creams, like Remergent, PSF, SkinCeuticals etc. If the Neutrogena cream was equally potent as the high end brands, they would likely have disclosed the percentage of retinol, in my opinion.

free skin care · Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:12 pm

I used Neutrogena's Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle cream with spf 15. Nothing impressive. Just nothing. I don't know what is the concentration of Retinol but I don't think that much. It contains a sun block. How is it possible to create a day-time cream with a high percent of retinol?
I also bought a Neutrogena's Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle Intensive cream (Night) recently but I haven't tried it yet.

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