What's more, a 2018 double-blindstudy with 44 people compared 0.5% Bakuchiol with 0.5% retinol cream and found that " bakuchiol is comparable to retinol in its ability to improve photoagingand is better tolerated than retinol". A super promising result after 12 weeks. If you are not a daredevil-type who doesn't want to stop using a super well-proven retinol for a newbie like Bakuchiol, we have good news. The two also workvery nicely together and Bakuchiol can actually help tostabilize the otherwise unstable and hard to formulate retinol. And we are still not done, as Bakuchiol shows not only anti-aging properties but also nice anti-acneeffects. 1% Bakuchiol seems to be very effective in itself (57% reduction in acne after 6 weeks treatment) and even better when combined with 2% salicylic acid(67% reduction in acne after 6 weeks). We like that Bakuchiol is such a good team player! The molecule works against acne in multiple ways: It downregulates 5α-reductase (asebum-controlling enzyme), it is antibacterial (including P. acnes), anti-inflammatory and it inhibits lipid-peroxidation, an evil oxidative process that is recently thought to be a very early trigger in the acne process. We feel that this description is becoming very long so we will just mention that Bakuchiol also seems to positively regulate hydration-related genes such as Aquaporin 3 and also shows some melanin-inhibiting properties.