Is retinol good for my skin? This New Device Responded to Me Immediately

It was a miracle product in case you were wondering retinol It’s true for you, you’re not alone. I’ve spent hours on Reddit trying to confirm whether or not I should use skin care products, what variation might be right for me, and whether it works as it should when I use it.

According to cosmetics giant L’Oreal, I’m one of the 9 out of 10 women who feel frustrated with skincare, struggling to figure out which products are right for me. Unlike the joy of experimenting with makeup, experimenting with skincare can be a frustrating experience, says Guive Balooch, the company’s global managing director of extended beauty and open innovation.

“Part of the problem with this is that we do a lot of listening without the facts and science behind what our skin needs individually,” says Balooch.

I tried some last year The latest technological products of L’Oreal at Vivatech in Paris, including Kiehl’s Derma-Reader, an imaging machine that can examine your skin and make product recommendations. The Derma-Reader was interesting to experience, but the technology only looks at the top surface level of your skin and also only recommends Kiehl’s products as treatments, which may not be the best for you.

Horse CES 2025 This year, the company introduced a new device Cell BioPrintCollaboration with Korean beauty technology company NanoEnTek. It can read beneath our skin and read biomarkers to tell us whether we should respond to certain ingredients – like retinol, for example – and then match our skin with the right products.

Check this out: I Give My Cells to L’Oréal to know which products are good for my skin (and you can too!).

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I was excited to try this technology because I’ve experimented a bit with retinol over the years and couldn’t figure out if it was for me. Retinol is a form of vitamin A – is affordable, over-the-counter, and promises to smooth fine lines and wrinkles, shrink enlarged pores, and treat acne. But it also has its downsides: it can take a long time for your skin to adjust to it, and in the meantime it can become dry and flaky, or cause acne breakouts.

I gave up retinol twice during ongoing acne breakouts, often referred to as retinol blemishes. But as L’Oreal’s imaging technology tells me, my skin is three years older than my actual age, and if I can tolerate retinol, the anti-aging effects may be worth it.

What Cell BioPrint revealed to me

My Cell BioPrint experience started with rubbing my skin a few times with the sticker to pick up skin cells. The sticker went into the cartridge and it took about 1 minute to remove everything but the proteins from my skin. The liquid inside the cartridge containing the proteins was then squeezed from the dropper into the test strip and fed into the desktop Cell BioPrint machine, which took about 90 seconds to read my biomarkers.

The good news: The L’Oreal tech told me that my skin has a 75 out of 100 retinol sensitivity. If I can tolerate it, I can improve my pores, oiliness and barrier functions. of which L’Oreal designated as “needing attention”. Along with retinol, she recommended SkinCeuticals salicylic acid serum and zinc PCA IT cosmetic cream.

I really appreciated the scientific analysis of my skin, which made me decide to take retinol the next time I want to quit, although I may have to start with a lower concentration than I used to. I also liked that the service, designed to provide an in-store skin analysis, had access to L’Oreal’s library of skin care products, rather than just one brand’s solutions.

“We have so many choices today, and what we need to understand is what are the right choices for our biology and our needs?” Balooch said. “A lot of products take time to work. So it’s really seeing the invisible and taking the guessing game and giving you the most accurate products.”