YOU NEED THIS NIACINAMIDE SERUM NOW! PRODUCT REVIEW: THE INKEY LIST SUPERSOLUTIONS 20% NIACINAMIDE SERUM – Best Niacinamide Serum, What Is Niacinamide? What Does Niacinamide Do for the Skin?
It seems I can’t keep up with the product innovations coming from the labs of The Inkey List – one of my all-time favorite skincare brands.
My last detailed Inkey product review on the blog came at the beginning of the summer. I included The Inkey List’s Omega Water Cream Moisturizer in an article titled, The Best Lightweight Summer Moisturizers Ss22 From Skinfix, The Inkey List And Peach & Lily, which you can catch here.
The brand’s deliciously lightweight Omega Water Cream Moisturizer was one of a handful of product launches that came at the start of the year. In addition, among the spring skincare trove were the Hyaluronic Acid Cleanser and Mandelic Acid Treatment – one of the most innovative dark spot and acne mark treatments in a while.
With a 10% concentration of Mandelic Acid, The Inkey List’s Mandelic Acid Treatment is ideal for gently targeting dark spots. It’s a thick, velvety serum made to adhere to the skin so it remains in place to more effectively fade specific spots in your complexion.
You can catch my full review of the Mandelic Acid Treatment on the blog here.
PRODUCT REVIEW: THE INKEY LIST MANDELIC ACID TREATMENT - BEST DARK SPOT SERUM
So I’ve clearly struggled to keep up. My bad! There are so many super innovative skin and hair care products from The Inkey List that I couldn’t possible review them all. I’d just be an Inkey blogger. I’ll have to stick with being the number one #inkeyfanboy.
This fall, the brand introduced five products under a new franchise carve-out called The Inkey List SuperSolutions. The brand’s “super solutions” are formulated with higher concentrations of powerful actives like Azelaic Acid, Niacinamide and Retinol than the mainline Inkey products – or than are found in most other active skincare serums and creams, even those from brands that market themselves as “clinical.”
With elevated ingredient concentrations and enhanced efficacy, the prices are higher, though the products remain affordable, with costs far below industry standards for similar facial skincare. Individual SuperSolutions product prices range from $17.99 to $24.99.
At launch, the SuperSolutions franchise includes a mid-strength Retinol face cream, the 1% Retinol Serum for $24.99; 5% Benzoyl Peroxide Cleanser Acne Solution, an acne cleansing cream for $17.99; and a personal favorite, the The Inkey List SuperSolutions 10% Azelaic Serum at $17.99.
But perhaps the most popular product out of the gate is a powerful skin brightening serum with Niacinamide – the SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum, also priced at $17.99. By comparison, the Paula's Choice CLINICAL Niacinamide 20% Treatment is $52.
Along with Vitamin C and Retinol (Vitamin A), I consider Niacinamide essential to every pro-skin health skincare routine. I use a dedicated Niacinamide serum in both my AM and PM skincare regimens. I’ve made no secret of the fact that my all-time favorite anti-aging serum with Niacinamide is the iconic Paula's Choice 10% Niacinamide Booster. Unashamedly, I go through two bottles of 10% Niacinamide Booster a month!
The Best Niacinamide Serums & Treatments
What Is Niacinamide and What Does Niacinamide Do for the Skin?
Niacinamide is one of a handful of actives that I consider indispensable in any skincare routine that actually helps you to attain and maintain the health of your skin. If you aren’t employing a Niacinamide serum in your daily skincare routine, you’re missing a real opportunity to up your game and defend your skin against the aging forces of time, stress and the environment.
Among its many benefits for the skin, Niacinamide is one of the most effective and potent antioxidants, helping skin defend against skin-aging environmental damage. But it’s much more than a great antioxidant and complexion brightener. Niacinamide helps to flush out pores, keeping them from clogging and thus preventing bacteria-induced acne blemishes. At higher levels and with consistent use, Niacinamide helps to even out skin tone, smooth rough texture, and strengthen the skin barrier so skin retains moisture more effectively.
There’s a comprehensive article on Niacinamde written by the skin experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team, titled simply, Niacinamide for Skin. Here’s what I found most helpful in understanding the broad benefits of Niacinamide and why it’s such an essential part of a pro-skin health routine.
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.
The Inkey List | SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum
As I’ve often shared, I use a dedicated Niacinamide serum twice daily – in both my morning and evening skincare regimens. I know you’re likely thinking that seems excessive and you’re probably asking yourself, Is it OK to use niacinamide everyday?
The answer is not only can you use Niacinamide every day, but you should. In fact, Niacinamide – a form of Vitamin B3 – does so much for your skin that it’s almost incomprehensible. In addition to Vitamin C and Retinol (a form of Vitamin A), Niacinamide is among a handful of actives I consider indispensable in any pro-skin health skincare routine. If a Niacinamide serum is not at the core of your daily skincare regimen, you’re selling yourself (and your skin!) short.
What can a 20% Niacinamide treatment like The Inkey List’s SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum do for the skin and is 20% Niacinamide better than 10% Niacinamide? As I have, you may also ask yourself, what percentage of niacinamide is most effective?
Well, let’s start at the baseline of a 2% concentration. Many face creams and anti-aging serums with Niacinamide are formulated with 2% of the active – the recommended level. When a brand wants to make a new brightening face cream or antioxidant serum with Niacinamide, 2% is the most common concentration. The benefits to the skin at a 2% concentration include antioxidant protection and brightening of the complexion.
At a higher concentration of 10% – as with the Paula's Choice 10% Niacinamide Booster – in addition to antioxidant defense and skin brightening, the benefits include evening out and unifying of an uneven skin tone, regulating surface oil and strengthening of the skin barrier. And you cannot underestimate the upsides of a stronger skin barrier!
At a 20% concentration, The Inkey List’s SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum does all of those things, only better. Plus, a 20% concentration has an exfoliating effect that helps to smooth surface roughness for a more refined skin texture. Think baby soft skin!
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While great skincare innovators, The Inkey List is by no means the first to introduce a 20% Niacinamide serum. Paula’s Choice was the first to the 20% party with the introduction of their $52 CLINICAL Niacinamide 20% Treatment. I’ve reviewed this powerful and IMO one of the best anti-aging serums on the blog here.
What The Inkey List achieved with the SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum is to make such a powerful Niacinamide treatment available for under $20. And the brand’s 20% Niacinamide Serum is more than just Niacinamide.
The formula also includes 0.5% Zinc PCA which, with the Niacinamide, helps to regulate oil production in the skin. If you struggle with oily skin and, as a consequence, acne breakouts, you need a tube of this right now.
In addition, there’s a 3% concentration of Squalane in the formula. Squalane is a superb non-fragrant plant oil that helps replenish and moisturize the skin. Derived from olives, Squalane provides additional antioxidant protection that supplements the powerful environmental defense that the formula’s 20% concentration of Niacinamide delivers.
I really love the texture of the The Inkey List 20% Niacinamide Serum. It’s light, creamy and perfectly “layerable” over more watery serums and before the application of a moisturizer. If you’re oily or very oily, you likely won’t even need an additional face cream.
If you have normal, combination or dry skin, use the 20% Niacinamide Serum in conjunction with a well-formulated hydrating face cream that maintains skin’s water content and replenishes its lipid content. My favorite face cream for dry skin (and all skin in the cold!) is the Skinfix barrier+ Triple Lipid-Peptide Cream, which I’ve reviewed on the blog several times. It’s clinically proven to replenish skin lipids like fatty acids and ceramides to help strengthen the skin barrier. Combine it with The Inkey List’s 20% Niacinamide Serum and you’ve got the core of a solidly pro-skin health routine.
(You can read more about the Skinfix Triple Lipid-Peptide Cream on the blog here.)
What I like about it: The Inkey List SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum is one of the best Niacinamide serums on the market – and certainly the best Niacinamide serum for the money. At just $20, it’s a super affordable addition to a pro-skin health skincare regimen. It delivers the entirety of Niacinamide’s broad range of benefits for the skin. Just wow!
What I don’t like about it: At just one ounce, I went through a tube of it in two weeks. But that’s me using it every day and not skimping on product during application. I just couldn’t get enough of it! If you use just few drops, you’ll get your money’s worth.
Who it’s for: All skin types, especially oily skin types, very oily skin types and acne-prone skins.
SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase The Inkey List SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum for $17.99 here.
The Ingredient List of The Inkey List SuperSolutions 20% Niacinamide Serum:
Water, Niacinamide, Butylene Glycol, Squalane, Hydroxyethyl Acrylate/Sodium Acryloyldimethyl Taurate Copolymer, Glycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Benzyl Alcohol, Ammonium Acryloyldimethyltaurate/VP Copolymer, Zinc PCA, Polysorbate 60, Ethylhexylglycerin, Dehydroacetic Acid, Sorbitan Isostearate & Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate.
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