I was really excited to try this serum. I had heard great things about retinoids for oily acne prone skin types. I checked the ingredients list before purchasing and was happy to see it was alcohol, essential oil and fragrance free. The consistency feels like a very runny oil similar to grapeseed oil. It soaks in well and didn't cause any irritation in the first week of using it. Or so I thought.

The second week, however, was a different story. I hadn't had any cystic acne for months and my skin was finally on it's way to clearing. My focus now was to control oil and fade acne scars. But two weeks in, I felt a few hard and sore lumps dwelling below the surface of my chin and cheeks. Also painful whiteheads scattered around my nose and chin. I knew exactly what was coming. They all came to a head when I was seeing my skin therapist so she got the honour of painfully extracting them from my pores. On further investigation into my skincare routine this was the only product I had recently added, so it had to be the culprit. I jumped on incidecoder.com and researched the ingredients a 4th and final time.

The first red flag is the second ingredient Coco-Caprylate. It's derived from Coconut oil which we should all know is highly comedogenic and acne inducing! But on the website there was not much information on it being comedogenic so initially I wasn't worried. But when I thought more about it I realised how foolish I had been. Ingredients are listed in descending order, starting…