Retinol and Vitamin C – How To Layer

How Should You Layer Retinol and Vitamin C Into The Daily Skincare Routine?

In Lancer Skincare, patients start with The Method, using Polish, Cleanse and Nourish to treat and renew the skin. Once The Method becomes part of their everyday routine, Advanced C Radiance Treatment and Advanced Retinol Treatment can be added in slowly, but it’s important to alternate between the two instead of using them together.

Vitamin C is known to reduce the appearance of UV damage and dark spots while brightening skin tone and assisting with skin cell regeneration. Retinol softens wrinkles and fine lines while improving the appearance of skin elasticity, texture and tone. Both build collagen, fade dark spots, soften wrinkles and give you a more youthful complexion. However, to see benefits, it’s important that you use them separately for a couple of reasons. First reason being that they operate at different PH levels. When mixed, the Retinol’s PH will drop while the Vitamin C’s PH will escalate to higher than it needs to be. This change in PH will actually make them less effective, which defeats the purpose of using them.

The two products also have different solubility requirements as retinol is oil-soluble and Vitamin C is water soluble. The two fail to dissolve when mixed together and therefore, its ingredient won’t penetrate the skin the way we’d like it to. If it can’t go deep into the skin, we can’t receive its benefits.

Using Retinol and Vitamin C Safely

If you’re interested in using both products, you could use Vitamin C in the morning and Retinol at night. Another option would be alternating between products every other day. You could use Polish and Cleanse in the morning and Cleanse, Advanced C Radiance Treatment and Nourish at night. You could follow this routine on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday then change it up the other nights. Tuesday and Thursday could be your Retinol nights and you can see how the skin responds following that schedule. One thing to note is that Retinol should only be used at night as the treatment makes skin more sensitive to UV rays. You could be damaging your skin if you use it during the day, so always keep retinol treatments for bedtime.