Niacinamide Explained: Skin Barrier Repair, Hydration, and Hyperpigmentation Support

[Intro] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Facially Conscious with myself, Trina Reneá, Esthetician and Rebecca Gadberry, the Cosmetic Ingredient Guru, highly-acclaimed educator and award-winning journalist. She is the cosmetic industry leader.

We are gathered here together with you to talk about this crazy world of esthetics. It's confusing out there in this big, wide world. That's why we are here to help explain it to you all, subject by subject. We will be your go-to girls. And from our perspective, without giving medical advice, we will keep things facially conscious. 

Let's get started!

00:57 Trina Reneá: Hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Episode 23. I am Trina and I am here with Facially Conscious and Rebecca Gadberry. And today, we are going to talk about a very important ingredient in the industry and it's called niacinamide. So I'm going to let Rebecca take over and tell us what this is about. Of course, I'll ask questions for all of you along the way. 

01:28 Rebecca Gadberry: But for those of you who know Trina by now, please realize that she said niacinamide correctly. 

01:35 Trina Reneá: I did. I'm learning. That's not a hard one. 

01:41 Rebecca Gadberry: No. 

01:41 Trina Reneá: You know what a hard one is for people, is hyaluronic acid or is it hyaluronic acid or is it, how is that? 

01:48 Rebecca Gadberry: Hy-and-el-uronic acid sisters, yes. 

01:51 Trina Reneá: Wait, what? You just said it totally different.

01:55 Rebecca Gadberry: Hyaluronic acid. 

01:56 Trina Reneá: Hyaluronic acid. 

01:57 Rebecca Gadberry: Yes, and we're going to talk about that in one of the future episodes. 

02:00 Trina Reneá: Yes, I think on our next one may be possible. I don't know. We'll let you guys know.

02:05 Rebecca Gadberry: We're being told not to do that. 

02:07 Trina Reneá: Right. We can't pre-say just in case we don't do it. 

02:11 Rebecca Gadberry: Right. 

02:12 Trina Reneá: Today…

02:14 Rebecca Gadberry: We are doing this. 

02:15 Trina Reneá: We are talking about niacinamide. And some of you also know about, what's that other one I said earlier? It's with the C. Ceramides. 

02:24 Rebecca Gadberry: Ceramides. 

02:25 Trina Reneá: Yes. So we're going to mention that a little today, too. But what is niacinamide, Rebecca? 

02:31 Rebecca Gadberry: Well, niacinamide is part of the B vitamin family that's been known for many decades. It is the B3 in the vitamin B complex. It's also called niacin, but niacinamide is the gentler form. It's the non-irritating, non-flushing form. You know, if you take niacin internally, you get a flush response a lot of times. 

02:58 Trina Reneá: Ooh, I've done that before. I took niacin once. I don't remember why. I forget why. Somebody probably said to do it. 

03:07 Rebecca Gadberry: It's good for cholesterol, lowering cholesterol. 

03:10 Trina Reneá: Yeah, and it makes you red. 

03:11 Rebecca Gadberry: Yes, the niacin flush. So niacinamide was developed so that you don't flush. And when it's put on the skin, it also doesn't irritate like niacin can. 

03:21 Trina Reneá: So what do they use niacinamide in a product for?

03:25 Rebecca Gadberry: They use it for many things. As a matter of fact, it is one of the most useful ingredients, and it's also not an expensive ingredient that we can put into a product. The only thing you've got to look for is the percentages that are used for the different benefits or the payoff.

So we use it between 2% and 5%. When we use it at 2%, it helps to repair the skin's barrier. And a few episodes back, we talked a lot about the skin barrier. As a matter of fact, several episodes. One of the primary components or lipids in the skin barrier that help to keep the barrier intact and fresh, your skin moist and comfortable, and keep moisture in your skin is called ceramides. And niacinamide helps to stimulate the production of ceramides. 

04:23 Trina Reneá: In our own body?

04:24 Rebecca Gadberry: In our skin. Niacinamide has over 40 different functions in the human body. A large number of those, 36, 37, actually are in the skin. It's one of those vitamins that just loves the skin or the skin loves. 

04:43 Trina Reneá: Do our bodies make niacinamide? Or no?

04:46 Rebecca Gadberry: You know, I don't know. It's a vitamin, so I don't think so. 

04:49 Trina Reneá: It's something that helps us with different functions in our skin. 

04:52 Rebecca Gadberry: Right. We have cell receptors on it, which the receptors are like little locks on the front door of your house. And the molecule that's shaped in the mirror shape to the lock can open the door, like a key. Niacinamide has receptors on lots of different cells. As a matter of fact, one of the functions that we're just finding out about with niacinamide is that it helps the cells communicate better. 

And there is a new definition of aging that is being shared by Dr. David Sinclair who's a longevity researcher. 

05:36 Trina Reneá: He has a podcast, right?

05:38 Rebecca Gadberry: He has a wonderful podcast, if you want to listen to him. 

05:40 Trina Reneá: We'll have to give a link for that. 

05:43 Rebecca Gadberry: Let's do that because I follow him passionately, and he is an awesome researcher. He's come up with so many ideas for longevity. He says that aging is the direct product of cells not communicating properly. Our ability to communicate within our own body falls down or starts to be inhibited or even destroyed in some instances. And niacinamide helps the communication that decreases as we get older, the communication between cells. It helps to reestablish that communication. 

So you definitely see direct benefits from niacinamide, and I'm going to talk about this, but you might see general benefits all throughout the skin just because of the niacinamide being present and helping cells communicate. 

06:43 Trina Reneá: So that'd probably be good in a body cream, too. 

06:46 Rebecca Gadberry: Oh, it's fabulous in a body cream. 

06:48 Trina Reneá: All over your body. 

06:48 Rebecca Gadberry: Face cream, yes. 

06:49 Trina Reneá: Really good for skin. And probably internally, too, no? 

06:53 Rebecca Gadberry: Yes, it's taken as a vitamin. It's part of the B complex. There's also vitamin B3 that's sold individually in little tiny tablets. The issue is to get the niacinamide. Or it may appear as nicotinamide, which is the chemical name. Niacinamide is the supplement name or the ingredient name on the cosmetic or the skincare product. Niacin is what flushes. You can have B3, B-niacin, or B-niacinamide. So you want the niacinamide. 

07:26 Trina Reneá: Okay. Good to know.

All right, so tell us some of these benefits. 

07:31 Rebecca Gadberry: Well, one of the key benefits is to repair the stratum corneum or the barrier of the skin so that you get a smoother skin. 

07:39 Trina Reneá: So good in moisturizers, serums, like all of it. 

07:42 Rebecca Gadberry: Hydrated skin. The barrier lipids, there's fatty acids, there's ceramides that are in your skin, they can, because of poor cell communication, can get out of whack in your stratum corneum, in your barrier. And so you start to lose water out of your skin. Well, the niacinamide will help repair that in a week or two. And then you start to have an intact barrier. 

I put it in all barrier repair products now. I love it. I just love that ingredient. And you only have to use 2%, so it's not expensive to use at all. 

08:25 Trina Reneá: Is this an ingredient that you see across the board as in a lot of products, like a lot of labs use?

08:30 Rebecca Gadberry: Yes, and it's becoming very, very popular. There's so many products now. There's even companies who have part of the niacinamide name in their product names. 

08:43 Trina Reneá: Really pushing on it. 

08:43 Rebecca Gadberry: I can't endorse anything but…

08:45 Trina Reneá: Right. But it's like something that you might find in all your products. It's one of those ingredients that are …

08:52 Rebecca Gadberry: It's a drop-in ingredient to do a multitude of different types of benefits.

Another thing that it does is, at 5%, it helps to lighten the skin. So now this may take up to 12 weeks because what it does is it...

09:14 Trina Reneá: Like lighten brown spots or the skin in general? 

09:16 Rebecca Gadberry: Lighten brown spots. Lighten brown spots specifically. Lighten darkened pigment like in melasma or chloasma, which is that pregnancy mask, lighten the throat area or the neck region in the chest that can darken. All of that, which is a hormonal darkening. It helps with all of that.

09:38 Trina Reneá: Yeah, you see sometimes the necks of people start getting redder, like colored. It's almost like not pigmented. It's not like brown pigmentation from sun damage but it's like an overall kind of…

09:52 Rebecca Gadberry: Red brown pigment, yeah. 

09:52 Trina Reneá: I've seen patients with that, yeah, in the neck. 

09:56 Rebecca Gadberry: And that can be a buildup of a pigment called lipofuscin, L-I-P-O-F-U-S-C-I-N. And lipofuscin is a chemical in the cell that when certain lipids in the cell are no longer useful and they need to be destroyed, they turn into lipofuscin, which is kind of like a toxic sludge that builds up in the cell. That's what causes that yellowing pigment that would be in that red-yellow look on the neck or in an age spot.

10:37 Trina Reneá: How have you seen people get rid of that on the neck? 

10:39 Rebecca Gadberry: Niacinamide is really good for that at 5%. So it needs to be like the second ingredient in the ingredient list. It needs to be way high up.

It also is really good to inhibit the formation of glycation. Glycation gives you that crepey look to the skin, like if you have a satin sheet and you kind of crinkle it up and it gets crepey. That's the look that you see in your skin. It happens. 

11:10 Trina Reneá: It's like folds. 

11:10 Rebecca Gadberry: It's like little tiny micro folds. Yeah.

11:13 Trina Reneá: Yeah, like little valleys.

11:15 Rebecca Gadberry: Right. And this is where sugar coats the fibers in your skin that give your skin strength. And they start to— it's like, I call it the créme brulée effect on your skin.

11:30 Trina Reneá: That's not cute. 

11:31 Rebecca Gadberry: It's not cute, and it's not tasty either. So what happens is that these fibers that are very elastic and pliable start to break because of the sugar that's been coated around them, and you start to get a very typical formation of those little tiny wrinkles that we were just talking about, that crepiness. 

So niacinamide has been shown to get in the way of the sugar coating those fibers in your skin, the collagen and the elastin in your skin. 

12:03 Trina Reneá: So how if somebody listening to this podcast goes, “I want that,” because I'm saying that to myself right now, “I want that, I want to create that.” So how do you know as a consumer, like I'm going to go out there and find a 5% niacinamide so I can help myself with my glycation and my neck problems, how do they know that— I know you said it's like in the top one or two ingredients. Should they, like I remember one time on another episode you said look up the word “niacinamide” in Google and then press Search and then look for what? 

12:38 Rebecca Gadberry: Images. 

12:39 Trina Reneá: Images. 

12:41 Rebecca Gadberry: Right. So you Google “niacinamide.”

12:42 Trina Reneá: 5% maybe. 

12:43 Rebecca Gadberry: You can Google 5%. You can Google 10%. If you get above 10% niacinamide, and there are some companies that are doing that. We have a friend of ours who's doing that. If you go above 10%, then you could be triggering irritation.

13:00 Trina Reneá: Okay. 5% is a good... 

13:03 Rebecca Gadberry: 5%, it's very functional. It's very beneficial. 

13:07 Trina Reneá: And effective. 

13:09 Rebecca Gadberry: Extremely effective. 2% is good for rosacea to help calm down the rosacea. 5% is good for skin lightening and also anti-yellowing or sallowness. Also, if you smoke and you get that yellow pigment in your skin, it's good to inhibit that. So it's very good for smoker skin. 

If you are just looking for the moisturizing benefit, 2% is fine, and you're going to find that probably middle of the ingredient list, slightly above the middle of the ingredient list. 

13:46 Trina Reneá: Okay. So without having the word be in the product name…

13:54 Rebecca Gadberry: You're just going to go to Google, look up 5% niacinamide. Click on that, you're going to get hits back. And at the very top, it'll say “all”, then it'll say “videos” or “images” and “shopping”. That menu. You're going to click on “images”. Not “shopping,” “images”. And the images of the products where the companies claim 10% or 5% niacinamide will come back. You can click on that and then do your shopping that way. 

Or you can go into your esthetician, or into a skincare studio, whatever, wherever you buy your products, and ask if they have a 2% or 5%. 

14:40 Trina Reneá: Okay. 

14:42 Rebecca Gadberry: It also is extremely good for helping to thicken the dermis. So it causes the cells that make the collagen and elastin, the fibroblast cells, to make healthy collagen and elastin. Whereas vitamin C irritates the fibroblast and you get an unhealthy formation of collagen and elastin that can cause your skin to look scarred after a few months, niacinamide causes that fibroblast, that cell, to produce a healthy collagen or elastin. So over a period of several months, you're going to see less wrinkles, less crow's feet, less marionette lines around the face, lighter on the 11s. 

15:25 Trina Reneá: What about just putting a pure 5% niacinamide in a dropper?

15:31 Rebecca Gadberry: You could do that. I'm sure people have. Why not? 

15:36 Trina Reneá: Why not? 

15:36 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah, you could absolutely take a serum base…

15:37 Trina Reneá: We’ll talk later. 

15:38 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah, let's talk later. But you could take a serum base and put it 5% in a serum base, and that's it. And it would not be expensive. It would be like $15 retail. 

15:48 Trina Reneá: Wow. But it's also good to blend it with other ingredients.

15:53 Rebecca Gadberry: Absolutely. 

15:55 Trina Reneá: Because if you start separating out all your ingredients into one-offs, you’re going to be using 15 bottles. 

16:02 Rebecca Gadberry: Well, I like niacinamide with the hyaluronic acid. I think that's a real nice combination. And when we talk about hyaluronic acid, if you're listening, you can put the two ideas together. I know you'll find it in products. It's not an uncommon blend. 

16:19 Trina Reneá: Right. A lot of people mix with it. 

16:22 Rebecca Gadberry: Absolutely.

16:23 Trina Reneá: Okay, what else about niacinamide? This sounds magical. 

16:26 Rebecca Gadberry: It is. It's been extremely well-researched. It's one of those ingredients that's used by everybody from Procter & Gamble and L'Oreal and Estee Lauder to estheticians working in the studios.

16:44 Trina Reneá: So it's probably one of those ingredients at one time that was like all the hype, and then it just kind of balanced into everybody's thing. You know how things go. 

16:52 Rebecca Gadberry: It's still kind of hype-y. It's still kind of hype-y. 

16:55 Trina Reneá: Trending. 

16:56 Rebecca Gadberry: Trending. But it's been trending for about 14 years now. And dermatologists love this ingredient. Dr. Vicki, I'm sure, would have lots to say in praise of niacinamide. 

17:09 Trina Reneá: Yeah. 

17:11 Rebecca Gadberry: And I have not seen it not work. It always works. 

17:16 Trina Reneá: It always works. And people aren't allergic to it. 

17:20 Rebecca Gadberry: People can be allergic to anything, so I'm not going to say you're not allergic. One of the problems with saying you won't be allergic to this, if you're a highly allergic person, there's a chance you will be. And so you attract highly allergic people to your product. And there's a chance that a highly allergic person is going to be allergic to something. So you might have an allergy to it. I don't know. But it depends upon yourself. Get some. Try it. 

17:46 Trina Reneá: Yeah. But most common, like, it's in so many products, most people are not, probably. 

17:53 Rebecca Gadberry: It is not a common allergy.

17:54 Trina Reneá: But using it at a 10%, would it have any kind of reactive, like...

18:00 Rebecca Gadberry: It could trigger redness like rosacea. It could be irritating to people with sensitive skin. If you want to use a high-end mount, the reason that it would be irritating is because your stratum corneum, your barrier, is not intact. So use it at the lower percentage first for a few weeks to get your barrier intact. Because remember, at 2%, it repairs the barrier. Then once the barrier is repaired, if you want to try 10%, go ahead. 

18:29 Trina Reneá: So do you yourself know of people who have put a 10% niacinamide into a skin lightening product? 

18:37 Rebecca Gadberry: I do not.

18:38 Trina Reneá: Okay. Just curious.

18:39 Rebecca Gadberry: But I would not be surprised if they did. And actually, I just did that. It's in testing right now in our lab and being tested on people with skin spots.

18:54 Trina Reneá: Skin pigmentation? 

18:55 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah, with pigmentation. 

18:57 Trina Reneá: Okay. I'll be interested in learning how that goes.

19:01 Rebecca Gadberry: Oh, I'm sure you will, having little behind-the-scenes samples. 

19:06 Trina Reneá: Yes, but it doesn't ever have to be an over-the-counter, I mean like a prescription. 

19:13 Rebecca Gadberry: It doesn’t have to. No, it's not a prescription product.

19:16 Trina Reneá: It would never be. 

19:17 Rebecca Gadberry: It might be in a product that for another reason is a prescription, to go along with whatever the benefit is. But on its own, it would never be a prescription that I know of. I see no reason for it to be. 

It's a vitamin. Not that many people are allergic to vitamins. They may think they are, but they're getting an irritation response. It's different than an allergy response. 

19:41 Trina Reneá: I wonder if you had like melasma and some pigmentation if you took a lot of B3 internally. 

19:49 Rebecca Gadberry: Niacinamide, not niacin. But it's more effective to be applied directly.

19:54 Trina Reneá: Topically. 

19:55 Rebecca Gadberry: Because, remember, as I've been saying in other podcasts, the skin is like a pharmacy. And so it will take the niacinamide and turn it into something else. That is the skin lightening benefit.

20:11 Trina Reneá: Magical. 

20:12 Rebecca Gadberry: It's magic. 

20:13 Trina Reneá: Our skin is very cool. 

20:15 Rebecca Gadberry: It is. It's one of the most interesting organs of the entire… to me, of course, because I'm a skincare chemist, it's the most interesting.

One more thing about niacinamide. It also helps to reduce what's called photoimmunosuppression, which is where UV light, especially, suppresses the immune system of the skin. That makes you more susceptible to skin cancers.

So niacinamide is really good if you're going out in the sun. And again, only 2% would be effective there or would be necessary there. 

21:00 Trina Reneá: And what about in front of the computer, people who sit in front of the computer a lot? Does that affect that at all? 

21:05 Rebecca Gadberry: Yeah, that's high energy visible light or blue light. I haven't read anything about niacinamide and blue light, but it would not surprise me if it had an effect with that. 

Oh, one more thing, and I was reading about this last week. There's something in the air, especially in places like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, where we actually have to see the air before we can breathe it. And what causes the air to be visible are these things called particulate matter. They are little tiny, tiny, tiny bits, little particles that are in the air, floating in the air. They're called PM2.5, and that is the size of the piece of particulate matter. They land on the skin and they get your skin dirty. They can irritate. They can also trigger cancer, skin cancer. 

And niacinamide is effective at interrupting them on the skin to prevent them from getting into the skin. 

22:09 Trina Reneá: So like in your body creams and your sunscreens. 

22:12 Rebecca Gadberry: Right. I'm also working on a couple of products right now that you'd spray it on the skin as an anti-pollution mist, along with some other ingredients that help to interrupt particulates from tobacco smoke, that type of thing. I have no idea what brand it's going to be sold under, but it's going to be out there. 

22:34 Trina Reneá: Oh, cool. That's exciting. 

22:36 Rebecca Gadberry: It is, isn't it?

22:38 Trina Reneá: I love this industry. It's so fun. 

22:40 Rebecca Gadberry: I know. And I love opening the kimono and exposing to everybody what's going on behind the scenes. 

22:46 Trina Reneá: Yeah, because there's always something new happening and new discoveries, even about old ingredients. It's just like a constant flowing thing. And I just love it when it all just comes out and then gets put into the products and you’ve just like all this advanced technology.

23:04 Rebecca Gadberry: Here it is, yes.

23:06 Trina Reneá: It's happening especially in my lifetime. I feel like during the last 20 years it's just expanded so much.

23:14 Rebecca Gadberry: Oh, it really has. And imagine when I got into the industry in 1964, you could not sell skincare if you didn't have makeup.

23:23 Trina Reneá: What? 

23:24 Rebecca Gadberry: Yep, you could not sell skincare to anybody if you didn't have makeup to go along with it. You sold the skincare as part of the makeup program. 

23:32 Trina Reneá: So was it in the makeup or like you could sell skincare if you sold makeup as well? 

23:37 Rebecca Gadberry: Right, but your lead-in to your client, to your customer, was always makeup. And you had to learn as a salesperson how to talk to this consumer to get them interested in skincare. 

23:51 Trina Reneá: That's so weird. 

23:52 Rebecca Gadberry: So your makeup will go on much more easily and look better and last longer if you use this moisturizer. 

23:59 Trina Reneá: And that was the only way to sell products back then?

24:00 Rebecca Gadberry: Absolutely. Yeah. People just…

24:02 Trina Reneá: That’s so weird.

24:04 Rebecca Gadberry: We did not value our skin like we do now. And now, everybody's into taking care of their skin.

24:10 Trina Reneá: I mean, it's a huge market.

24:12 Rebecca Gadberry: Even if you just use something like a bar soap or whatever, you make sure that you're thinking about your skin and its health and its appearance when you do that. 

24:23 Trina Reneá: You know, when you said about you had to sell makeup in order to sell skincare, if you want to become an esthetician like myself, I have to also learn how to put on makeup and I also have to learn how to wax people, even though I have never waxed a human outside of school. I am not a waxer. I don't pull people's hair. And I don't feel like waxers who want to just be a waxer or a makeup artist who just wants to be a makeup artist has to go through esthetician school. They don't want to do skincare. 

24:53 Rebecca Gadberry: I understand. That's why we have a separate license now for aesthetics, because those of us who only wanted to work on skin didn't want to learn how to do a perm or how to cut hair. 

25:05 Trina Reneá: Right. That used to be all. Well, also hairdressers have to learn skin too, like estheticians. It's weird that they kind of cluster those things all together. 

25:14 Rebecca Gadberry: But I think we're getting off topic here. 

25:16 Trina Reneá: I know, but I just had to throw that in there because it was like when you were saying about the makeup, I was like, yeah, I had to learn makeup too. Why do they throw makeup into everything? 

25:27 Rebecca Gadberry: That's because you couldn't do it without it. You could not get somebody to pay attention to their skin. It also used to be you couldn't sell skin care to men unless you talked to them through their beard. 

25:38 Trina Reneá: What? 

25:40 Rebecca Gadberry: “Hello? We're talking about your skin now through your beard.” No, men related to the rest of their face through how they cared for their beard and how their beard looked. Now men are realizing or have realized that…

25:54 Trina Reneá: Some men. 

25:56 Rebecca Gadberry: Some men. 

25:57 Trina Reneá: Not my husband. 

25:58 Rebecca Gadberry: They may have a beard, but they want their eyes to look good above the beard. 

26:02 Trina Reneá: I have noticed that the men that I've worked with in this industry, when they are concerned, it's always the eyes. They'll use an eye cream, but they won't do anything else.

26:15 Rebecca Gadberry: You know, since we're talking about men, why don't we make that an episode for everybody to be part of, the whole team? 

26:20 Trina Reneá: Okay. Yeah, we should. 

26:22 Rebecca Gadberry: The FC team. 

26:24 Trina Reneá: Let me make a note.

26:25 Rebecca Gadberry: Okay. 

26:26 Trina Reneá: All right. We'll do a men episode, with the other ladies. 

26:31 Rebecca Gadberry: With our other ladies. Now everybody knows what we talk about in our off time when we're not on the microphone. This is a typical conversation between the two of us. “Oh, and then we can do this, and what about that?”

26:42 Trina Reneá: So many subjects.

26:45 Rebecca Gadberry: Creativity abounds. 

26:47 Trina Reneá: All right. Well, I think we have to wrap this up for the day. 

26:49 Rebecca Gadberry: I think we're getting the heads up to wrap up. 

26:52 Trina Reneá: We are. So if you guys out there come up with any episodes that you want us to hit on specifically, please let us know. You can always send us a note on Instagram or on YouTube, and we would be happy to bring your episode into one of our shows.

27:12 Rebecca Gadberry: Yes. 

27:13 Trina Reneá: So have a wonderful day, evening, morning.

27:16 Rebecca Gadberry: Life. 

27:18 Trina Reneá: Life, and we'll see you next time. 

27:21 Rebecca Gadberry: Bye. 

27:22 Trina Reneá: Bye.

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