What is retinal in skincare?

What is Retinal?

Retinal (RAL), also known as vitamin A aldehyde, is a derivative of retinol after oxidation. It is generated by the oxidation and cleavage of β-carotene. It is reduced to retinol and oxidized to retinoic acid. Retinoic acid plays a wide range of roles in skin diseases, but its clinical application is limited to a certain extent due to local irritation. Retinal is an intermediate metabolite of natural retinoic acid, has similar biological activity to retinoic acid, and the skin's tolerance to it is significantly better than retinoic acid.

Retinal (RAL) has the characteristics of retinoic acid in the skin, and is better tolerated than retinoic acid. It directly interacts with protein receptors in cells, stimulates the skin epidermis to accelerate renewal, increases the thickness of the stratum corneum, and makes the skin firmer and more orderly; at the same time, it can accelerate the production of collagen in the dermis, prevent UV damage to collagen, inhibit the increase of MMP caused by UV, and make the skin more elastic; the unique aldehyde structure has a strong inhibitory effect on Propionibacterium acnes, etc., and effectively improves acne skin.

What Are The Functions Of Retinal?

Retinal has many functions, such as anti-aging, beauty spot removal, and exfoliation.

1.Anti-aging: Retinal is a nutrient and a necessary nutrient for cells. It can increase cell activity, achieve anti-aging and improve skin effects.

2.Beauty spot removal: Adding retinal to skin care products can improve skin metabolism and improve skin spots.

3.Exfoliation: Retinal can stimulate the skin epidermis to accelerate metabolism, which is conducive to promoting the shedding of aging stratum corneum and improving skin appearance.

In addition, it can also play a role in skin rejuvenation, whitening, anti-wrinkle and other effects.

What Is The Application Of Retinal?

Retinal is used in skin care products to produce multiple effects such as anti-aging, skin rejuvenation, whitening, anti-wrinkle, acne removal, and exfoliation. It is an emerging and highly efficient natural active substance.

The application of large non-physiological doses of exogenous retinoic acid can cause overloading of retinoic acid-dependent pathways in the skin, leading to adverse reactions such as skin irritation. RAL is the natural metabolite of retinol and the direct precursor of retinoic acid, which has similar biological activities to retinoic acid. The advantage of RAL compared with retinoic acid is its multidirectional metabolism, that is, excess RAL can be quickly reduced to retinol, and then stored and inactivated in the form of retinol. This "reverse metabolism" Not found in tretinoin. After it is absorbed by the skin, most of it is converted into retinol vinegar and stored for slow release. A small amount of RAL is oxidized to retinoic acid by keratinocytes in a differentiation-dependent manner, and a very small amount of retinoic acid is released in the skin. It can play a significant biological role within cells. This can avoid adverse skin reactions caused by large doses of retinoic acid. Clinical observations also show that topical RAL cream is better tolerated than retinoic acid and can be applied to sensitive areas. Topical RAL is not absorbed into human blood, and the levels of various retinoids in the blood are not affected.

RAL needs to be converted into retinoic acid by enzymes in keratinocytes before it can take effect, so RAL has similar biological activity to retinoic acid. One of the indicators of retinoic acid activity is the induction of cellular retinoic acid-binding protein (CRABP-2) expression. Topical RAL can significantly induce the expression of CRABP-2 mRNA and protein. Topical application of natural retinoic acid can also induce expression of nuclear retinoic acid receptors. Like retinoic acid, RAL also has the function of regulating cell proliferation and differentiation. It can increase epidermal DNA synthesis, increase epidermal thickness, induce 50kD keratin, and reduce 7OkD keratin mRNA expression. Induces positive keratinization, reduces the expression of 65kD keratin mRNA, and increases the expression of filament aggretin and loricrin mRNA. In addition, RAL is also involved in regulating neovascularization in the skin and inhibiting the production of vascular endothelial growth factor by keratinocytes. Repair UVA-induced elastic fiber and collagen damage. RAL also has comedolytic and direct bactericidal effects against P. acnes. Natural retinoic acid plays an important role in epidermal differentiation, dermal reconstruction and skin inflammation. Retinaldehyde, as an important intermediate metabolite of natural retinoic acid, has similar biological activity to retinoic acid and is well tolerated by the skin, so it is widely used in cosmetics.