I Get Personal With Bakuchiol

This Month on The Label

I'm gonna make this casual. I want this space to feel personal and not like a science article, although I do love a good theory. I want to share a bit of me in these entries along with the fun knowledge I have about skin and products, or whatever tips and skills I can share with you. So we'll see how this goes.

It's Kitty here, currently in my PJs at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday, eating cold pasta leftovers and not feeling like anything I do interests me. I'm in a rut. Which is ironic, because I have been working on new things for the shop for a while. Watch out in October for something new. But it's my day-to-day life I'm feeling so bored of.

And I love a good routine. To be quite honest, I want to stay in bed, eat cereal all day, and watch Vincent Price movies. Obviously, because he is the most handsome man to have walked the planet. So delightful and devilish. But things need to get done, so I'm gonna geek out about some plants.

Everyone has heard of retinol. This active can really save your skin. It helps with collagen, fine lines, and that smooth, younger-looking skin every brand promises us. But then it can be crazy harsh. There is the redness, the flaking, and the very serious sunscreen relationship that comes with it. She's an oldie but a goodie. You know her. Every brand talks about her or uses her, and she is a staple in beauty.

But do most of us even know what retinol really is?

Well, hi. I'm the botanical chemistry nerd in the back of the room raising my hand. I can explain, if you have ever asked yourself, 'Yeah, but what is it really?'

Okay So What Is Retinol

Retinol is a form of vitamin A and part of the larger retinoid family. Retinoids include everything from cosmetic retinol to prescription tretinoin. They are related, but they are not all the same strength and they do not all arrive ready to work in exactly the same way.

Retinol has to go through a little conversion process once it is in the skin. First it becomes retinaldehyde, and then it becomes retinoic acid. Retinoic acid is the form that can really start talking to the cells.

Inside skin cells are retinoid receptors. The easiest way I can explain them is like little switches for certain cell instructions. Once retinoic acid hits those switches, it can influence how skin cells develop, how quickly old surface cells are replaced, and how collagen is made and maintained.

Collagen is part of what gives skin its support, but the body is always making it and breaking it down. There are enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases, or MMPs, that help clear away old or damaged proteins. We need them. The problem is that sun exposure and aging can make that cleanup crew a little too enthusiastic, so collagen starts being broken down faster than it is replaced.

Retinoids can help encourage new collagen while slowing some of that extra breakdown. They also affect the epidermis and pigment, which is why retinol has earned its reputation for helping with fine lines, rough texture, and uneven-looking tone. It is not famous for nothing.

The price of all that activity is that retinol can temporarily disturb the outer barrier. That is where the familiar redness, dryness, flaking, and stinging come from. It is also sensitive to light and usually belongs in protected packaging and nighttime formulas. Retinol works. It is just a little high-maintenance about it.

And Then There Is Bakuchiol

Bakuchiol comes mainly from the seeds of Psoralea corylifolia, usually called the babchi plant. It belongs to the legume family, which I enjoy because it means this very fashionable skincare active is related to peas and beans. Plants are weird. I love them.

Bakuchiol is one specific molecule found in that plant. Chemically, it is a meroterpene phenol. I know that sounds like a phrase designed to end a conversation, but it tells us something useful. Part of the molecule behaves well with oils, which is why bakuchiol fits so naturally into oil serums. The phenolic part is also connected to its antioxidant activity.

Free radicals are unstable molecules. They go looking for electrons from nearby fats and proteins, and that can set off a little chain reaction of damage. An antioxidant can donate what the free radical is hunting for and help stop the reaction from traveling. Bakuchiol's structure lets it take part in that kind of cleanup without becoming just as troublesome afterward.

So while retinol is best known for changing cell behavior through the vitamin A pathway, bakuchiol comes in with antioxidant activity too. That matters because oxidative stress can damage lipids, proteins, and the environment around collagen over time.

Here is the part I find really cool: bakuchiol does not turn into retinoic acid. It is not a retinoid at all, and research has not shown that it uses those same retinoid receptor switches. Still, laboratory studies have found that retinol and bakuchiol can influence some similar genes connected to the skin's support structure.

Bakuchiol has been linked with activity involving Type I, III, and IV collagen, and with lower activity from MMP-1, one of the enzymes involved in collagen breakdown. So it is reaching some of the same general results, but it is not copying retinol molecule for molecule. It is doing its own thing, which is honestly more interesting.

A Tiny Botanical Detour

Bakuchiol and babchi oil are not two names for the same thing. This is worth saying because beauty marketing loves to blur the whole plant, the plant oil, the extract, and one purified molecule into one big botanical soup.

The babchi plant contains a collection of compounds, including naturally occurring psoralens. Psoralens can become reactive under ultraviolet light, so an unrefined babchi oil or a crude plant extract is not the same ingredient as purified cosmetic-grade bakuchiol.

Properly isolated bakuchiol is refined so those unwanted compounds are removed or greatly reduced. That is not a betrayal of the plant. Sometimes refining is the responsible part.

I have already been humbled by the idea that natural automatically means safer, and I wrote more about that in Not Everything Clean Is Better for Your Skin.

When They Put Them Head to Head

There is one comparison that gets brought up a lot, and for good reason. Researchers followed 44 people for 12 weeks. One group used a cream with 0.5 percent bakuchiol twice a day, and the other used 0.5 percent retinol once a day.

Both groups had a significant reduction in wrinkle surface area and hyperpigmentation, and the researchers did not find a statistically significant difference between their results. The retinol group did report more scaling and stinging.

Now, that is one fairly small study. Retinol has decades of research behind it, and bakuchiol does not. I am not going to stack one study on a chair and crown it queen of skincare. But this was still a real head-to-head test, and bakuchiol did real work. It was not just standing there being botanical and photogenic.

What Is the Actual Trade

Retinol gives the skin a stronger, more direct set of instructions through the vitamin A pathway. It is well studied, usually works faster, and has the bigger pile of evidence behind it. But it can also interrupt the comfortable balance of the skin barrier while the skin adjusts. That is the trade.

Bakuchiol appears to be more indirect. It can influence collagen-related activity, help limit some of the enzymes involved in collagen breakdown, and offer antioxidant support of its own. It is also more photostable and usually easier to place into a formula without making the whole routine revolve around managing retinol.

That does not mean bakuchiol is just retinol with the volume turned down. It has a different collection of strengths. It may take longer to show you what it can do, but it is not asking the skin to take the same route to get there.

And yes, this is exactly why I chose bakuchiol for Golden Repair. I wanted that collagen-supporting, antioxidant kind of ingredient without turning the serum into a retinol boot camp. There is my tiny product interruption. Moving on.

So Which One Do I Think Is Better

If we are asking which ingredient has the largest body of evidence, it is retinol. If we are asking which one has the most direct and established effect on cell turnover and collagen production, retinol wins that too.

But I do not think bakuchiol needs to beat retinol at being retinol. That is kind of a boring way to judge it. Bakuchiol is its own compound. It can support collagen-related activity, help defend against oxidative stress, and improve some of the same visible signs of photoaging without using the vitamin A pathway.

And I am not choosing it just because it comes from a plant. Plants contain chemistry. They are not automatically safer, gentler, or spiritually superior because they grew out of dirt. We talked about that already.

I think bakuchiol is the better overall option because I like the trade better. Retinol is stronger and much more thoroughly proven. Bakuchiol gives us a nice balance of collagen support, antioxidant activity, daytime stability, and skin comfort. It may take a little longer, but I am okay with that.

Retinol is the old favorite and she has earned her place. I just think bakuchiol deserves to stop being introduced as the quieter substitute standing beside her. It is doing something interesting all on its own. 

Okay, I know that was a long one. I just vomited a lot of plant chemistry all over your device while sitting here in my pajamas with my cold pasta, but I had a post to write and somebody had to say it: y’all need to stop treating retinol like the holy grail just because beauty brands have been talking about it forever. She’s good. She’s proven. We respect her. I just think bakuchiol deserves a seat at the table without always being introduced as retinol’s gentle little understudy. Anyway, my pasta is still cold, my rut is still here, and I have officially done one productive thing today. I’m counting it.