Niacinamide

[Soymocha]

I'm looking to introduce this to my skincare routine and wondering if anyone has tips both on how best to do it and brands.

My current skin care routine is as follows:

Am: cleanse face, vitamin c serum, hyaluronic acid, moisturizer then SPF50.

Evening: cleanse face, hyaluronic acid then Olay Retinol 24.

I'm wondering whether to replace the retinol with niacinamide. Or buy a retinol cream with niacinamide as an ingredient or use them both but separately. I was previously looking to switch to The Ordinary retinol based on reviews here until someone told my niacinamide was better.

What do others do? My primary goal is to reduce skin discoloration and wrinkles from ageing (currently, don't have either but in my mid 40s).

Thanks!

Niacinamide is a great allround ingredient but it's nothing like retinol in terms of what it can do long term to your skin's appearance. It's generally good to have both, I wouldn't pick between the two. Olay usually puts niacinamide in everything, is it not already in the cream? There's no real need for a separate niacinamide product either imo, unlike active ingredients it formulates easily and you don't need a high percentage of it, so more of an add on ingredient than one that needs its own specific product.

Considering your aims though, you're probably best signing up with a prescription service like Dermatica or Skin+Me. Their basic anti ageing prescription usually contains both niacinamide and the stronger active form of retinol, tretinoin. Then potentially other actives for specific concerns like pigmentation or acne.

And I say this kindly, I know skincare can be very confusing with lots of contradictory advice coming at you, but try to not get carried away with hearing one thing from one person and then when someone else claims no X is better, immediately jumping on that. There's not a whole lot new in skincare, it's not as complicated as people like to make it out to be (there's no money in that) and the effect is fairly limited (by law, anything that genuinely changes your skin would be a medication, hence the popularity of the prescription service). Consistency is key, jumping from one thing to the next chasing overnight transformations won't achieve much as skin doesn't work like that, it takes weeks to see substantive results. What you've already been doing with wearing SPF daily is excellent and the best thing you can do for your skin long term in terms of anti ageing practice.

Thanks @botemp for the advice. I think as I started very late to the skin care routine, I'm still in my learning stage of working out what to try!

You're right. Olay Retinol 24 does contain niacinamide! I did look on the jar but it didn't state it but I've just done a Google search. I will check out the two prescription sites you mentioned. I only picked Olay as I was in Boots and had no idea so went for a brand I knew.

Thanks again for the advice. All points taken on board and I couldn't agree more about being consistent.

Niacimide works well with everything except with vitamin C. If you are risking it and using them together you should wait a minimum of 10 to 20 minutes.
A lot of people react to niacimide so if you add to your routine and your skin starts going a bit "wonky-ish", remove it, wait, give it a try again to test it after a while. Then decide.