Advanced Retinol Intensive Night Moisturizer

StriVectin’s Advanced Retinol Intensive Night Moisturizer almost earned our top rating. It’s an overwhelmingly impressive anti-aging moisturizer for all skin types, but a low amount of fragrance poses a slight risk of irritating skin. As good as this is, there are plenty of fragrance-free retinol products that are every bit as praiseworthy as this one.

Packaged in an opaque squeeze tube, the smoothing, light cream texture glides over skin to deliver an impressive amount of the brand’s NIA-114 ingredient, myristyl nicotinate. It’s a form of the B vitamin niacinamide that has some research supporting its ability to improve skin tone, texture, and moisture retention, and it “plays nicely” with retinol.

Shea butter, some standard thickeners, and dimethicone round out the primary hydrators in this nighttime moisturizer, then we get to the retinol, peptides, and antioxidants this also contains, all of which make for a robust formula (we love it when retinol is joined by other anti-aging superstars). The packaging mentioned above keeps all of these delicate ingredients stable during use, another plus.

One clarification: Technically, retinol doesn’t help cell turnover, at least if by that claim StriVectin means that it exfoliates. Retinol doesn’t work like AHAs (such as glycolic acid) or BHA (salicylic acid); what it does do is change how skin cells are formed and how they move from the lower to the upper layers. That’s why using an AHA or BHA exfoliant complements rather than replaces what retinol does for skin--and just in case you’re concerned, research is clear you can use these ingredients at the same time; they don’t cancel each other out.

Last, the NIA-114 ingredient will help reduce the chance of sensitivity to retinol developing, but it’s not the only ingredient on board for this purpose: StriVectin also included soothing plant extracts from willow bark, ginger root, and chamomile-derived bisabolol.