Aisling on beauty: Can retinol take care of my wrinkles?

I recently celebrated a milestone birthday and it has made me more curious than ever to test pro-ageing skincare. I have plenty of friends who are the same age or older than me who have smooth, line-free faces because they get regular Botox and fillers.

About five or six years ago I went through a phase of getting Botox done, but I stopped. Nothing works like Botox, no matter what the packaging claims. It instantly gets rid of crow’s feet and all your lines. The problem is that it’s expensive. If you are tempted, make sure to go to a properly qualified dermatologist to get it done.

I have a “lifter’s face”, which means I raise my eyebrows a lot and am very expressive; every emotion shows on my face. So I don’t have fine lines on my forehead: I have full-on wrinkles. Now I want to see how far retinol creams can take me. The strongest retinol treatments available without prescription contain 1 per cent pure retinol. I’ve used several in the past, but in a haphazard manner. Now, however, I am disciplined and am sticking to the regime. I’m using Skinceuticals 1 per cent Retinol Night Moisturiser.

The initial advice with retinol is to take it slowly. I did not heed this advice. I used the cream every night for the first three nights. On the first morning I woke up with slightly reddened skin. On day two I was the colour of a tomato, and my skin was really dry. By day three the peeling started. My face itched like mad and my skin was coming off in lumps.

It wasn’t an attractive look but I was delighted. Something was definitely happening. I knew from my experiences with glycolic peels that I had to stick it out for better skin. I got sense and waited three days before I used any more retinol. I am two weeks in now and I use the moisturiser every second night as my skin is more accustomed to it now.

I also reduced my skincare regime to a handful of products for extremely sensitive skin, as anything else stings. Hopefully this will be temporary because I love to try new skincare and mix up my routine. Trilogy Cleanser, Elave moisturiser, Clinique Smart Oil and suncreens with an SPF50 are keeping irritation to a minimum.

I can see an improvement already. My skin is definitely smoother. I will report back and tell you how I am getting on when I hit the two-month mark.

• amcdermott@irishtimes.com
• Twitter @aismcdermott