GLOSSIER SUPER | PURE NIACINAMIDE + ZINC SERUM

This review was originally part of my blog article titled, New Niacinamide Serums from First Aid Beauty, Glossier and Beauty Bay to Brighten a Dull Complexion. You can catch the full piece here.

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If you’re looking to light up your complexion each day, Niacinamide should be your best friend. Sure, there are numerous active ingredients that have the power to brighten skin – among them the multiple forms of Vitamin C.

But most of the best brightening serums and face creams on the market today contain Niacinamide. There’s simply nothing as effective — and as broadly beneficial for optimizing the healthy of your skin.

In fact, one of my latest product discoveries for brightening the complexion and fading dark marks and hyperpigmentation is powered by upwards of nine brightening actives. Nine!

The Topicals Faded Serum for Dark Spots & Discoloration is infused with Niacinamide, Tranexamic Acid, Azelaic Acid, Alpha-Arbutin, Glutathione, Kojic Acid, Licorice Root Extract, Melatonin and Turmeric Root Extract — in that order. Yes, Niacinamide is the first ingredient in the formula, at the highest concentration — for a reason.

Niacinamide is the real game changer. The form of Vitamin B3 is perhaps the most under-appreciated of all skincare ingredients. It happens to be the most extraordinary and versatile, with the broadest range of skin benefits, including: antioxidant protection, clarifying and unclogging pores, retexturing the skin’s surface layer, strengthening the skin barrier and, yes, brightening the complexion.

My most recent deep dive on Niacinamide was published as 2020 came to a close. Titled Niacinamide Is the Game Changer You Need to Defend Against Skin Damage and Maintain Optimal Skin Health, the piece featured five of my favorite Niacinamide serums.

NIACINAMIDE IS THE GAME CHANGER YOU NEED TO DEFEND AGAINST SKIN DAMAGE AND MAINTAIN OPTIMAL SKIN HEALTH

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If you aren’t employing a Niacinamide serum in your daily skincare routine, you’re missing a vital opportunity to up your game and defend your skin against the aging forces of time, stress and the environment.

I’ve been using some form of Niacinamide in my own daily routines both AM and PM for about five years now. My journey began with what I consider the OG Niacinamide serum, the Paula’s Choice 10% Niacinamide Booster. With a 10% concentration of the active, it’s hands down the best anti-aging serum available today.

PRODUCT REVIEW: PAULA’S CHOICE 10% NIACINAMIDE BOOSTER – THE BEST NIACINAMIDE SERUM

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What Is Niacinamide and What Does Niacinamide Do for the Skin?

I found a comprehensive article on the form of Vitamin B3 written by the skin experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team, titled simply, How Niacinamide Helps Skin. That doesn’t do it justice! They should have titled the article, Niacinamide is the Game Changer You Need to Maximize Your Skin Health in One Step.

An excerpt from the article:

How Niacinamide Helps Skin
Niacinamide is a skin care ingredient worthy of your attention and your skin will love you for using it. Among a handful of other amazing skin care ingredients such as retinol and vitamin C, niacinamide is a standout because of its versatility for almost any skin care concern and skin type.
As many of you know about us, but for those who don’t, the conclusions we make about any ingredient are always based on what the published research has shown to be true—and the research about niacinamide unanimously demonstrates how special it is. New research keeps showing it’s one of the most exciting skin care ingredients around.
What is Niacinamide?
Also known as vitamin B3 and nicotinamide, niacinamide is a water-soluble vitamin that works with the natural substances in your skin to help visibly minimize enlarged pores, tighten lax pores, improve uneven skin tone, soften fine lines and wrinkles, diminish dullness, and strengthen a weakened surface.
Niacinamide also reduces the impact of environmental damage because of its ability to improve skin’s barrier (its first line of defense), plus it also plays a role in helping skin to repair signs of past damage. Left unchecked, this type of daily assault makes skin appear older, dull, and less radiant.
Why You Should Use Niacinamide
As you might have gathered, we’re very impressed with all that niacinamide can do for skin when applied via skin care products like toners, serums, and highly concentrated leave-on treatments. Niacinamide is uniquely compatible with any of the products in your skin care routine, including those that contain retinol, peptides, hyaluronic acid, AHAs, BHA, vitamin C, and all types of antioxidants.
You can use multiple niacinamide-containing products in your routine, and it will still be non-sensitizing as this ingenious B vitamin is well tolerated by all skin types. It’s even suitable for use by those with sensitive or rosacea-prone skin.
Other helpful benefits of niacinamide are that it helps renew and restore the surface of skin against moisture loss and dehydration by helping skin improve its natural production of skin-strengthening ceramides. When ceramides become depleted over time, skin is left vulnerable to all sorts of problems, from persistent patches of dry, flaky skin to increasingly becoming extra-sensitive.
If you struggle with dry skin, topical application of niacinamide has been shown to boost the hydrating ability of moisturizers so skin’s surface can better resist the moisture loss that leads to recurrent dry, tight, flaky skin. Niacinamide works brilliantly with common moisturizer ingredients like glycerin, non-fragrant plant oils, cholesterol, sodium PCA, and sodium hyaluronate.
How does niacinamide help pores? Great question, although the answer here isn’t certain. Simply put, research hasn’t come to a full understanding about how this B vitamin works its pore-reducing magic, but it does! It seems that niacinamide has a normalizing ability on the pore lining, and that this influence plays a role in keeping debris from getting backed up, which leads to clogs and rough, bumpy skin. As the clog forms and worsens, the pores stretch to compensate, and what you’ll see is enlarged pores. By helping things get back to normal, niacinamide use helps pores return to their normal size. Sun damage can cause pores to become stretched, too, leading to what some describe as "orange peel skin". Higher concentrations of niacinamide can help visibly tighten pores by shoring up skin’s supportive elements.

With a full understanding of the indispensable benefits of Niacinamide to a healthy skincare routine, let’s take a look at three of my latest discoveries…

Glossier | Super Pure Niacinamide + Zinc Serum

I’ve kind of been admiring the Glossier brand from afar for a long time now. Even though I somewhat recognize a product’s quality (or lack thereof) by scanning the INCI, the brand just wasn’t speaking to me. It’s clearly targeted to women, which is fine. Unless you’re not a woman.

It reminds me of that television network, Lifetime. Every once in a while, a few years back, I would catch a Lifetime movie. Until they revamped and decided their TV fare was for women only. Their slogan became Lifetime, television for women. And so, I tuned out.

But I’ve recently jumped into the world of Glossier and, as suspected, I like what’s I’m seeing. In particular, the Glossier Solution Exfoliating Skin Perfector is one of my favorite exfoliating acid toners — even though it can sometimes be too harsh for my sensitive-ish skin.

PRODUCT REVIEW: GLOSSIER SOLUTION EXFOLIATING SKIN PERFECTOR – BEST SALICYLIC ACID TONER

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The Salicylic Acid in Glossier’s Solution pairs well with a healthy dose of Niacinamide for what I term “pore maintenance” — effectively flushing out and unclogging pores to optimize skin health and prevent the occurrence of acne blemishes.

I firmly believe that with regular pore maintenance, pores are healthier and less visible. So for daily pore maintenance, Glossier’s Solution is good stuff.

Which brings me to the Glossier Super Pure Niacinamide + Zinc Serum. In the grand scheme of Niacinamide things, it’s not the most potent, the most effective, or the best Niacinamide serum available. It’s quite a simple formulation — with an INCI that’s just 10 ingredients deep. But it’s a solid formula, a moderate Niacinamide treatment — especially if you’re oily or acne prone.

What makes it ideal for oily, acne prone skin is the same thing that makes The Ordinary’s Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1% well suited for oilier skins — the zinc.

What Is Zinc PCA and What Does Zinc PCA Do for Skin?

According to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team, Zinc PCA is “a synthetic skin-conditioning ingredient derived from zinc. Research has shown it has anti-aging benefits due to its ability to thwart destructive enzymes in skin that can damage its surface and lead to an aged, wrinkled appearance.”

There is also some evidence that zinc can have a positive effect on the occurrence of acne breakouts. I found an insightful piece on Coveteur titled, Zinc Up Your Beauty Routine For Clearer Skin that I found supportive of the theory. An excerpt from the article:

For an ingredient that’s been around in beauty for legit centuries, zinc has recently become somewhat of a cool kid on the skin-care block. Known best for its use in sunscreens and anti-dandruff treatments, zinc in all its various forms is now popping up in everything from trendy skin supplements to clarifying ranges and sensitive skin creams, all claiming to help clear up breakout-prone skin, reduce redness, and restore a vivacious glow to your complexion. But is it for real? Well, that depends on who you ask.

First, a quick primer on zinc: It’s an essential mineral for your health that helps boost your immune system and can help with wound healing. Our bodies don’t naturally produce it, meaning we need to eat zinc-rich foods or supplements in order to get our recommended daily amounts—8 mg for women, and 11 mg for men.

Additionally, zinc is known for being anti-inflammatory, which is where its place in skin care comes in. “Back in the early 1970s, doctor J. C. Fitzherbert first recognized an improvement in patients’ acne when treated with zinc,” says Dr. Morgan Rabach, board-certified dermatologist and co-founder of LM Medical NYC. It was used regularly on patients during that time, but eventually fell out of favor with derms, she notes, when more effective treatments were discovered.

That doesn’t necessarily mean zinc is old news—there are actually some promising studies being conducted that show there’s more to zinc than history has shown. “Zinc and acne is an interesting avenue,” says Dr. Kenneth Howe, a Manhattan dermatologist at Wexler Dermatology and assistant clinical professor at Mount Sinai. “There is quite a bit of evidence that both topical and ingestible zinc can be helpful, from studies showing it might be toxic to the bacteria that causes acne, to people with acne [possibly having] lower levels of zinc. But this is all fringe stuff—if you do a standard medical search, you don’t get much.”

Adds Dr. Ted Lain, board-certified dermatologist and chief medical officer at Sanova Dermatology, “The exact method of how zinc helps with acne is poorly understood. However, if zinc does help with acne, it may be related to its effect on sebum production, as an antibacterial agent, and/or as an anti-inflammatory. Zinc is well-known to help a few other inflammatory conditions, like seborrheic dermatitis.”

Again, Glossier’s Super Pure Niacinamide + Zinc Serum is a simple formula. If your skin is sensitive or acne prone, simple is definitely better.

I love nearly everything in the INCI: Aqua/Water/Eau, Niacinamide, Glycerin, Propanediol, Zinc PCA, Lonicera Japonica (Honeysuckle) Flower Extract, Lonicera Caprifolium (Honeysuckle) Extract, Citric Acid, Allantoin, Hydroxyethylcellulose.

Honestly, if the level of Niacinamide were twice what it is (10% is ideal), then Super Pure would be among the best brightening serums for oily, sensitive, and even acne prone skin.

But the fact that it’s only got a 5% concentration and no other brightening actives like Licorice or Turmeric Root Extracts, means it’s not the brightening powerhouse it could and should be.

Glossier’s Super Pure Niacinamide + Zinc Serum does a fine job at flushing out pores and perhaps preventing the occurrence of acne blemishes — making it perfect for daily pore maintenance. Interestingly, the two unusual honeysuckle extracts in the formula can help hydrate skin and prevent it from drying out if used in conjunction with harsher acne clearing treatments.

How they came up with honeysuckle but neglected licorice is beyond me. It’s one of the great skincare mysteries of all time…

SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the Glossier Super Pure Niacinamide + Zinc Serum for $28 here.

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