A total of 2 reviews of this product on Reddit.
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I just looked them up, and have a few concerns based on the Amazon listing and some cursory googling.
the packaging (as seen here) is not ideal for stabilizing the retinol. An opaque pump bottle would be much better. This isn’t the biggest issue, but if they’re just using retinol they’ll need to meet a few more basic requirements before you can be sure that the product will last and the retinol contained within wont decay.
they do not list the ingredients anywhere in the Amazon post, but I found a blog that listed them. The product name is the same, despite the packaging shown in the blog being different than in the Amazon post. The first ingredient was water, retinol needs to be stabilized (this is why encapsulated retinol is so popular) in order to hang out in water, and it doesn’t look like this brand uses stabilizers to ensure the life of this product. Which doesn’t surprise me, because stabilizing agents and preservatives are usually not the strong suit for brands that rely heavily on “natural” marketing.
Too be honest, this brand is so inexpensive that I doubt the efficacy of their ingredients. That, combined with the packaging and potential formulation issues make this a weak product that’s unlikely to last, let alone work.
I’d recommend investigating Curology (which is pretty popular on this subreddit), from whom you can get prescription retinoids. If you want to go to internet/drugstore route, Neutrogena makes a line of “wrinkle repair” retinol serums and creams that are inexpensive and probably formulated acceptably. They don’t disclose their concentration of retinol, though, which is a problem imo. With Curology, you can start with a weaker prescription and move into higher strength concentrations so that you don’t suffer as extreme side effects (drying, peeling, etc.)
I’ve used Neutrogena, and saw some results. The serum and eye cream that I was using went bad before I finished them (additional edit: this was after having them for over 2 years and using them off and on, I definitely saw improvement in my skin texture, moisture levels, and appearance of fine lines and wrinkles while using this product nightly), and I’m currently thinking about Curology. And, while this wasn’t necessarily your original question, I’ve found that making my skin as moist as possible (through layers of humectants, like hyaluronic acid essences, propolis serums, moisturizing sheet masks, etc. sealed with occlusives) helps reduce my expression lines by a LOT. When I first got into AB (which was pretty recent, but I’ve always been into beauty science), I thought I was going to go with prescription retinoids, but proper hydration and occlusion has fixed a lot of the problems I had with expression lines. Edit: I forgot to add that Neutrogena packages their retinol products correctly, and I recommend the products in the tubes with the "metal" finish, this is the exact product I recommend.
I really hope this helps. I’m going to finish with a truly scathing review of the Art Naturals 2.5% retinol serum left on the Amazon listing by a pharmaceutical dermatologist.
Final edit (sorry): here’s a reddit post about this product, a different Amazon-sourced retinol serum, that looks a little more legit! It occurred to me that you might need a product you can buy on Amazon, and wanted to add another option. Furthermore, this one is a little less expensive than the ~$26 Neutrogena one I mentioned earlier.
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EDIT: Do not select any other company, only Art Natural. They are single use codes and they go fast. Just report it and if you really want it just use the website I listed in my other post.
