A Bit About Bakuchiol

Bakuchiol has become one of the most buzzed about ingredients in Green Beauty and also the conventional beauty spaces. It is derived from extracts of the babchi plant that is found in India and has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine to treat respiratory ailments and to calm the nervous system and in skin treatments for both wound healing and to maintain overall skin vitality.

In recent years, the ancient plant has become the new-fangled darling of the modern skincare world for one simple reason. Its properties and benefits are extremely comparable to that of retinol. Retinol, in terms of skincare, refers to the synthetically produced version of Vitamin A (in science "retinol" is the technical name given to all Vitamin A both synthetic and natural) . It has become the seeming one-way ticket to the fountain of youth and glowing skin and works by stimulating the skin's shedding process from the inside out, bringing fresher and brighter-looking skin cells up to the surface of the face and body as the old are discarded.

While this may sound like a skincare miracle, and indeed retinol can be very effective both against wrinkles-- and fine lines as well as helping the skin recover its appearance from things like sun damage, acne, and acne scarring-- there are definitely negatives to retinol. For one thing, there is concern against pregnant women using strong retinols for fear that products could possibly penetrate through the skin and into the bloodstream and filter down to the fetus. Another drawback is the forcibly inducing cell turnover especially with regular and prolonged use might also cause undue premature skin aging and reduced resiliency in the long-term or at minimum merely thin out the skin making it drier, more dehydrated, and more vulnerable to irritation. This also stands to reason why those with more sensitive skin often find retinol too stimulating, redness-inducing, and irritating to use at least in the beginning. And if not, many, including myself, find it difficult to use with any regularity at all.

Bakuchiol has no naturally occurring Vitamin A nor any known connection to any Vitamin A-rich (retinol rich) plant extract. however, it does show promising results that mimic retinol in terms of its ability to stimulate skin cell turnover but is much more gentle than retinol products often are on most. Largely, this is due to its inherent anti-inflammatory nature working to soothe the skin as it encourages renewal. Bakuchiol also is antibacterial and gives it some fighting power against acne just like retinol and also has some fatty acids naturally occurring within it, which may help to actually moisturize the skin rather than potentially dry it out as a byproduct of overstimulation. In fact in a 2019 study done in the UK that compared a group of women using a 0.5 % retinol cream (a percentage common in retinols that are more targeted but still available over-the-counter) and a group of women using a 0.5% bakuchiol cream showed "no statistical difference" and reported only that the women who used the bakuchiol cream experienced less irritation.

In terms of how else bakuchiol can aid the skin, there are also antioxidants which help to further strengthen the skin as well as give comparable effects to help even out discolorations. That said, bakuchiol does not penetrate the skin as deeply as some retinol products (especially those prescribed by a dermatologist) sometimes can. This means that it may take some users longer to see results or to have results close to the effect they could see from a retinol product. But to the positive, this also means that bakuchiol products seem to be more readily tolerated by those with more sensitive skin, and show much less prevalence in skin peeling, which is very common to beginning retinol product users, especially those trying prescription-strength retinols. Also, to date, there are no warnings against applying bakuchiol to the skin during pregnancy, and there are many contraindications out there to using synthetic Vitamin A (retinol) products during pregnancy .

One word of caution though is that bakuchiol does contain terpenes, substances that are known to thin (and sometimes purposely used to thin other substances over time). There is some concern among some skin experts that prolonged use of high amounts of bakuchiol could lead to excessive or premature skin thinning as is also case with synthetic retinol products, and, some even argue, essential oils, so those with sensitive skin should (as always) be cautious when incorporating the ingredient, even though it is thought to be less sensitizing than retinol. As someone with sensitive skin myself, I can tell you I have used at least three products with some regularity that contain some amount of bakuchiol and have had no issues. And I have a pretty significant sensitivity to retinol in skincare., which gives me lots of redness and stirs up a lot of heat in my skin that never seems to go away, even when I have given my skin a week or two of gradual but consistent use to try and acclimate to the product with retinol. I have experienced none of these things with products containing just bakuchiol as the retinol alternative and have no surface level dryness or peeling either from them. However, what is true of me may not be true for you, so I would be cautious in trialing bakuchiol as well as any other product or ingredient.

But on a more macro-level in regards to these cautions, most skin professionals who speak to this point do say that this risk with bakuchiol is much lower than most forms of retinol, especially synthetic, and would happen over a very slow progression of time and only with amounts of bakuchiol much higher than what is used in at least most of the skincare formulas, especially when you consider that these products also will most likely contain other ingredients besides bakuchiol to soften and balance out its effects. But to read more about bakuchiol's make up and comparison towards retinol, check out this post here.

So has the world of natural beauty found the new gold standard in aging gracefully? I suppose only time will tell. But for more of an overview on some recent studies comparing bakuchiol to retinol, I highly recommend taking a look at this article from Prevention magazine, and stay tuned til next week where I will be sharing a review of a new favorite skincare product featuring bakuchiol.