Full transcript of “Anua Niacinamide 10% + TXA 4% Serum Review”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 I got the anwa 10% niinomi tranexamic acid serum in one of the Korean Advent calendars I've been trying it out let's talk about it so this serum claims to help improve the appearance of the skin skin tone skin Clarity what is going on a whole lot actually in this little 30 ml bottle for 22 bucks you get 10% niinomi but you also get tranexamic acid 4% now tranexamic acid is an ingredient that is actually given in pill form by mouth to treat well melasma but there is some evidence that applying it topically directly to the skin can have some specific benefits more research is needed there's some question as to
0:46 whether or not it actually can get into the skin can affect meaningful change but there are clinical studies that demonstrate benefit from applying tranexamic acid to the skin specifically not NE necessarily for hyperpigmentation melasma although there is a bit of research there but surprisingly it shows a lot of promise for being particularly helpful for persistent facial redness whether that be related to rosacea yes there are clinical studies looking at topical tranexamic acid for rosacea or post-inflammatory athema that commonly occurs with acne and I know it's something a lot of you guys struggle with I have dedicated videos on how to fade post acne red marks they can be just as stubborn as post acne dark marks
1:33 now there is some research that applying tranexamic acid to the skin can help reduce the number of acne inflammatory spots specifically the papules little red bumps and the pules commonly referred to as pimples as well as reducing redness post acne redness and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation tranexamic acid can help with hyperpigmentation because it basically works by blocking the interaction between the pigment producing cells the melanocytes and the neighboring keratinocytes basically getting in the way of that transfer of pigment to the surrounding skin there's some evidence that suggests tranexamic acid may put the braks on abnormal blood vessel growth angiogenesis which is probably why it's helpful for redness and for persistent redness in rosacea
2:20 which is notoriously stubborn to treat without like leaning into laser treatments pulse sty laser specifically it's also thought that topically applied trans Amic acid can inhibit something called par 2 and ultimately that translates to improved barrier function Skin Barrier Integrity which probably helps explain to a certain extent why it is so helpful for redness not just for the potential anti-angiogenesis properties but also by improving barrier function you're going to limit penetration of things that are irritating you're going to limit water loss and ultimately improve barrier function reducing irritation that can drive more redness as well as stubborn hyperpigmentation we have a lot more research behind tranexamic acid consumed orally for treating melasma for treating
3:07 hyperpigmentation then we do for applying it to the skin but there is some research there and importantly it is clinical not just Mouse models not just cells in a dish obviously more research is needed but as a cosmetic ingredient it shows a lot of promise and importantly in the clinical studies that we have it appears to be very well tolerated side effects are uncommon the most common side effect from applying trans exam acid to the skin appears to be a little bit of redness maybe some skin peeling all of which in the clinical studies is alleviated by well applying a moisturizer so this product has 4% tranexamic acid which is a reasonable percentage many of the clinical studies use in the ballpark of 3 to 5% there is one study looking at 10% but I would say 4% is a reasonable starting point we don't have good dose
3:54 response curves or anything of that sort for applying this to the skin 4% seems reasonable this product also has niacinamide as do many products right it's one of the most frequently talked about ingredients on my channel almost every single video I do I feel like niacinamide comes up it's a B vitamin that is an antioxidant it's anti-inflammatory and it is helpful for Your Skin Barrier ultimately again that's going to help reduce irritation redness penetration of things that aggravate the skin and for people who have breakout prone skin acne having things that help with your Skin Barrier ultimately can help help you not only tolerate your acne treatments better which can be dry and irritating but ultimately can help with clearing the acne playing a supporting role I will say not necessarily a direct treatment
4:41 and there is some evidence that niacinamide applied to the skin can be helpful for people with acne niacinamide also is helpful for redness and like tranexamic acid it helps to get in the way of the transfer of those pigment packets from melanocytes to surrounding keratinocytes ultimately making it a good ingredient for dark spots because it's an antioxidant you also can make an argument for its use and its inclusion and skincare aimed at sort of anti-aging because it can help defend against oxidative stress that would otherwise damage like proteins lipids inner skin now the clinical studies that we have use niacinamide anywhere from like 2 to 5% this has niacinamide at 10% now that's on the higher end we don't have
5:26 research saying that 10% is better and be aware of the fact that higher percentages of ingredients don't necessarily mean more effective if anything it can be more irritating and I find that a lot of people verbalize that they are sensitive to niacinamide they feel it burns and stinks so I think it would be more reasonable to have niacinamide in this product at like 4 or 5% but provided you are not irritated by 10% great this also has polyglutamic acid which is one of my favorite skincare ingredients kind of hard to come by it is hydrating and helps improve moisture retention in the skin but it also kind of helps to a certain extent with reducing water loss minimizing penetration of ear tin it kind of puts this little hydrating Veil
6:12 if you will on the skin surface and it also helps to limit the breakdown of hyaluronic acid ultimately that's going to help with improving water content the reason I like this ingredient so much is because I find that I see a visible difference in my skin often times when I use products that have polyglutamic acid in terms of not only an improvement in skin plumpness firmness basically signs of better hydrated skin but also I do see an appreciable Improvement in just overall elasticity as well as Skin softness I also want to mention with regards to hyperpigmentation that the serum has 2% alpha arbutin alpha arbutin inhibits tyrosinase it's the enzyme responsible for pigment production in the melano site I like the fact that you
6:58 have a couple of different ingredient s that address hyperpigmentation slightly different ways and ultimately I think that makes for a product that potentially could be more powerful more impactful for helping to improve the appearance of dark spots than say a single ingredient on its own speaking of other ingredients that can play a supporting role in terms of dark spots as well as redness you have a variety of botanic ingredients in the serum that are loaded with anti-inflammatory compounds and antioxidants that ultim Ely offer the potential to reduce inflammation irritation in the skin these include compounds from cantella as well as from emesia you'll notice this Serum is pink and the reason it's pink I'm almost certain is because it has
7:44 cyano cobalamin vitamin B12 which in skincare products imparts a pink color a year ago at this point I want to say my gosh I reviewed a pink serum from the ordinary that had vitamin B12 and you'll recall from that review if you caught it that vitamin B12 applied to the skin shows promise for helping with some of the symptoms and the overall extent if you will of disease of atopic dermatitis a type of eczema where you get these flares of itchy red skin and like many of these other ingredients is pretty well tolerated now there's not a ton of research about B12 applied to the skin for a topic dermatitis but it does appear to be helpful now when I mention B12 and skincare a lot of people are concerned that it might quote unquote
8:29 break them out aggravate their acne there's no evidence that this happens with topically applied vitamin B12 although there is some association with taking high doses of B12 supplements triggering acne breakouts as well as high doses of other B vitamins check on my video on dietary supplements that break you out I talk more about it in that video but applying it to the skin does not appear to aggravate acne this has some other hydrating ingredients aside from the polyglutamic acid it's got hyaluronic acid and it also has p panol Peach flour extract I'm not entirely sure what exactly that is offering now this is a fragrance-free serum however if you are allergic to fragrance some of these botanic extracts may contain compounds that crossreact with your allergy and may cause issue
9:14 for you but it doesn't have any Aroma scent it doesn't have any kind of earthy odor to it another interesting ingredient in this is olive oil now olive oil people love to romanticize but interestingly enough applying olive oil like straight olive oil cheer skin has actually been shown to worsen transepidermal water loss it's not really that great as a moisturizing ingredient on its own now when it's included in products that are formulated with other moisturizing ingredients it doesn't appear to be an issue in terms of worsening potentially dry skin and olive oil does have a variety of anti-inflammatory compounds antioxidants it is an emolient so it may soften dry skin how have I been using the serum you can use it one to two times a day it's going to be the first step in your
10:00 skincare routine after cleansing to just apply a couple of drops is all you need it has actually a very good spread on the skin um just a couple of drops to the face and the nice thing about this product I found is that it is very thin in texture and consistency it is a good layering serum meaning you can put this on and you can put something else on like sunscreen which you're absolutely going to want to do if you're incorporating this into the morning routine because you're not going to fade redness or dark spots without sun protection regardless of what whatever ingredients are in the serum you are using sunscreen goes on over this beautifully it absorbs into the skin and dries down very quickly it's not very oily at all it's not the least bit oily which is great because oilier serums Cosmetics um even those that are very
10:46 siliconeer they often times butt heads with things that we try and apply on top especially sunscreen which needs to kind of lie down form that protective film on the skin a lot of people end up getting sunscreen killing those little balls that roll up when they put sunscreen on a bunch of different products this I think will be more than fine I had no issue tried multiple different sunscreens layered on over this not a problem whatsoever and then in my nighttime routine I have used it I also find that moisturizer gone over it just fine now even though it's got a lot of really great hydrating ingredients I have to say I put this on and I tried using it like at night time I kind of played around with could I just use this and see what it feels like without anything else it's not very moisturizing
11:31 as it dries down the skin feels like it still needs moisturizers I didn't really find it to be the most hydrating moisturizing serum but if you're going after the ingredients to address dark spots redness you might not necessarily care about that especially if you're already using a moisturizer overall I've tolerated this quite well I find it to be very soothing and I do feel as though my skin tone when I using this consistently it does look a bit brighter and more even and I think that it has really helped me in terms of having less irritation overall I do use those single blade razors to shave like some of the peach fuzz off of my face and that can actually be very irritating irritate my skin it's Hit or Miss that's why I use the single blade ones as a side note they're less irritating than like a
12:17 multi-blade leg shaver razor but I still do get a lot of irritation for those and I have found that this particular serum seems to support some my skin needs around that and I haven't gotten the irritation maybe it is related to this who knows I also use you know moisturizer and of course sunscreen and a moisturizing base but all that to say I really enjoyed it I think it is a good serum provided you are not someone who is irritated by niacinamide especially at higher percentages I think it is a well formulated serum you know it's hard to predict with something like this to what extent you're going to see results because it is a cosmetic hasn't been put through a rigorous clinical trial as it as its own product you know the ingredients have researched to support their efficacy but the product formulation overall this particular
13:02 product we don't really have clinical trials to predict how efficacious it might be for you and the extent of results that you might see from something like this are going to be very dependent on the nature of the redness and the hyperpigmentation that you might be dealing with hyperpigmentation and redness tend to be a lot more stubborn a lot trickier to fade take a lot longer to fade if the underlying inflammatory process say acne went on untreated uncontrolled for a long time the more inflammation in the skin the more stubborn the post acne dark marks and redness for example are going to be to fade but if say you just had a little zit here or there and it healed with a little dark mark that you typically get and you know it takes time for it to fade you might find that this particular serum helps it fade a bit more quickly
13:47 provided of course you are not irritated by it which will vary a lot from person to person but it doesn't have any ingredients that are a lot more typical of triggering irritation there are some similarities between this serum and the serum that I reviewed a couple of weeks ago from e.l.f like both have tranexamic acid both have 10% niinami but that one has a few different ingredients more so aimed at exfoliating so if you want a Serum with similar ingredients to what I've just talked about here but you're looking for something that will also exfoliate maybe to improve skin texture exfoliate the pore reducing blackhead and white head formation check out my review on that line I'm going to put it on the end slate watch that one next because not only do I review that serum but I also talk about their cleanser and
14:34 their Moisturizer in that line but if you guys enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up share it with your friends and as always don't forget sunscreen And subscribe I'll talk to you guys tomorrow bye [Music]
