I have been using tretinoin .05% cream for 10 weeks. My initial breakout started the first week and didn't clear up until about week 8. During that time, I had huge painful cysts and could not even wash my face without having pimples "spontaneously" popping. I used a washcloth to get rid of all the dead skin and there would be blood and pus all over it (sorry to be graphic). Sometimes I would come home and look in the mirror to find dried blood on my face from pimples that just popped on their own. SO yeah, I was super depressed during that time and I would cry alot and pretty much isolated myself from the world as much as possible. So here's my advice: -use a gentle cleanser. I used cetaphil. -don't pick at your skin. If a pimple pops on its own, just clean it up and leave it be. -Stick with it! I know it is hard, but it will get better. My skin is still not perfect, but once you get over the hump of the IB, you start to see positive changes in your skin almost daily. I am at the point now where I feel like I don't have to worry about breakouts and can move on to worrying about the red marks. : Hurray! Also, I think the most important thing is to know that no matter what you look like, God loves you and He wants you to persevere. At times when I was super depressed and crying myself to sleep, I would ask God why why why?! I still don't know why, but trust me, you are going to feel very sad and alone, so just remember that man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

Used the 0.5 cream version alone for 3.5 months and my face actually worsened. I experienced bad breakouts AKA cystic acne that I have never really experienced for a looong time on my trusty sage advice stuff and some peeling and very reddened skin. I also had red, scaly patches that I feared would remain forever if I continued using. Finally after more than three months of cringing in the mirror when I look in my face I knew it was time to throw down the towel. I'm sure my experience would have been different and much better if combined with an antibiotic and/or abx topical cream. I would not recommened this product on its own.

My doctor prescribed this for me. I have been on this stuff for 1 month, 22 days. I have the gel form, 0.025%. I wash my face with Anti-Bacterial Cetaphil Soap (Bar form works better because it makes a better lather) Anyways after i read all of the reviews on here I have told myself it will take a while to work. Let me tell you, the first few weeks were hell. Heres a little Timeline of what happened * 1st Week- Nothing really. The first couple mornings after the night i applied this stuff my face looked shiny and some skin was peeling but it didn't hurt a bit, a little redness and that's about it. *2nd, 3rd, 4th Week- Start of the Initial breakout. Your face will become itchy, red, some peeling will occur, and your acne will come back stronger than ever. Dont worry tho. All you need to do is wash your face the morning of and use a light moisturizer. This is the hardest part about sticking to Retin-A (Tretinoin) Keep with it, after the Initial breakout is over your skin will go smooth sailing from there. 5th Week- By this time some/most of my acne has gone and cleared up, especially on my cheeks and temple area and forehead. By now your skin may or may not be used to or adjusted to Retin-A. Keep going!!!! 6th Week- More acne has cleared up, acne scars have faded BIG time. My face doesnt seem as red. about 70% of my acne has been erased and all that is left is some scaring. But Retin-A is known for treating scars as well. (At least thats what I heard) The "Bottom Line" is I have given up on many products. The Initial Breakout is the worst and will make you want to give up, but fighting through that is a HUGE achievement. Once you get through that you will start to notice major changes...Give this stuff time. It even says on the directions that results will start to be seen 6-12 weeks of using Tretinoin. So Stick with it. Another thing I have been doing is drinking a lot of water. A liter a day. My skin is clearing up big time. Be gen

Please don't listen to the people who review this item and have only used it for a week or so. This product WORKS for 95% of people who have acne. This is a very strong product and it takes TIME and PATIENCE to work. It works by slowing the process of creating new skin cells. This in turn makes the layers of your skin peel away, revealing all the dirt trapped deep in your pores. In turn, YOU WILL BREAK OUT!!! But the irritation and breakouts is purging your skin of all the unseen, soon to be pimples. Do NOT give up on this product. You will not see fast results, but YOU WILL SEE RESULTS! You really just need to stick with it, and I promise you it will work. I have used this for deep black heads and I had small bumps under my skin on my forehead, after two months, they were completely gone and I now have PERFECT skin. Before I achieved the skin I have now, I went through peeling, redness, flaking, breakouts, oilyness, and itchiness. I felt like I sunburnt my face off, literally. But I am telling you, ITS WORTH IT! This product doesn't take DAYS to work, it takes MONTHS! But it does what it is supposed to do, and does it very well!!!!!! Stick with it people!!!! You will have beautiful skin.

So, I'm a 14 year old teenage girl. I got acne when I was in the 5th grade, and I had it--badly. I was washing my face, using proactiv, and nothing really seemed to work for me. I didn't really bother going to the doctor about it or anything because a lot of people get acne around that age, so I had no worries. My acne just never got better. I had these huge juicy big ones first all over my forehead, and eventually as my forehead got better, my cheeks got worse. So within the first week of high school, my self esteem was at an all time low. My acne was EVERYWHERE, and it was huge red and inflamed and I felt awful. So my dad took me to the determo. She gave me Retin A cream and told me that it worked with a lot of her clients. What she told me was that I should apply a small amount to my face every night before I went to bed, and washed it off first thing when I woke up int he morning. **If you don't wash your face off in the morning and go outside, your acne will get worse** She told me that the cream reacts to sunlight. She also mentioned to me that my acne would get worse before it got better, so I shouldn't stop taking the medicine. A week after I was taking the medicine, all of my acne turned from huge red inflamed, to hundreds of small white heads. Within week 2-4, it was like I had a BEARD of acne that went from my left cheek, down to my chin, to my right. But KEEP TAKING THE CREAM! I'm around week 7, and all my acne is GONE. From having it for 4 years, and the severity of mine, my acne is all gone. I have nothing but scars left, but I'm going to continue taking the medicine. Listen guys, I understand that acne lowers your self esteem. It also makes your acne worse, but do not stop taking this medicine. Patience is the key to a beautiful face. And also, more is NOT better. Do not apply excessive amounts of cream to your face each night. It will NOT help. just do a dab to your face to cover your spots.

Review: I had acne in highschool and it cleared my sophomore year of college, via differn gel (accutane helped to clear me in hs). After the accutane i was pretty clear and really didnt do much to fight the acne. It eventually went away 100 percent with differin. when i was 25 I noticed i was developing a few pimple here and there which blew up into full blown acne. I tried over the counter BP gel and this absolutely made my skin worse. I think my skin is too sensitive for bp. After this i tried doxycycline and ziana for my face. the ziana definitely gave me an initial breakout pretty bad, it was very hard to get through. After a month of that i swithched to bactrim and retin a micro .08. Immediately i noticed a difference in my skin (2 days). the bactrim made my skin look almost tan and it definitely helped dry out pimples. I retin a was much better on my skin than ziana which gave me a sticky feel. Retin a micro made my face feel smooth the next day, although there was some sensitivity the next day it was nothing compared to 10 percent BP. After 2 months on this regimen i can say that i am 100 percent clear. i give it 4 stars bc the initial breakout is vey difficult. My thoughts on acne: Acne is a seriously challenging monster to battle, don't let anyone convince you that just because it is common that it isn't serious. I dont know if I will ever go through anything as traumatic as acne. I've told a friend before that i would trade a hand or foot to have clear skin and i'm sure some of you out there would do the same. Acne is on your face everyday and in the way of every face to face interaction you have. A friend of mine from high school just got in a car wreck and is having facial reconstructing surgery and i'm sure she will be dealing with a similar challenge as an acne sufferer goes through. The reclusiveness, the tears and anger at her situation. She will atleast have one thing an acne suffer doesn't have, she will have the full compassion and understanding of all of her friends and family. Because acne is so common, acne, even server forms often get down played and or ignored by our friends and family. Also people will even blame our acne on us being unsanitary or not properly washing our face like 'they' do. as acne sufferers we are traped in this tug of war between being a victim and being at fault. We are told it is normal and nothing to worry about, but we see the scars forming and we see the picture of those with more serious acne. I can say i understand how confusing it is to be in this living hell. Just know you aren't alone, and you can get 100 percent better. And for now know that people will love you,and jesus will love all the same. Maybe we go through these events in our lives and can create positive outcomes from them. Maybe we will be that inspiration for someone who is on the verge of suicide and they see your positive outlook despite having acne and decide not to take their lives. just know we live and a broken world with car wrecks and acne and evil all around us but we can have peace and love and satisfaction with jesus in our hearts. And ironically our struggles are our best tool to spread the love we find to others.

I am still celebrating the fact the I have found something that actually works and stays working. I've tried almost everything and I ended up having to go to UofM Dermatology to try prescription since Proactive and Clean and Clear aren't consistent. I was prescribed Benzoyl Peroxide, Minocycline and TRETINOIN. I can not explain the frustration and anger I had the first three weeks. I wanted to throw this stuff all in the trash. I had a really bad initial breakout. I ended up logging on to www.acne.org. What do you know? Most people are experiencing the same issues with these prescriptions. BUT when I started to come across some of the positive reviews about these prescriptions I noticed a pattern. They all had the same initial breakout but then finally after a month or two the cleared up. That was all I needed to continue Tretinoin and Benzoyl Peroxide use. About two weeks later and I feel like my face is clearer than a baby's. My face is now smooth, the scars are less noticable and I've had no pimples for a week now. I feel like a new man. Acne can really affect someone's self-esteem and confidence. It sure did effect mine. The results are so unbelievable that I had to take time to come back and register so I can share my experience. No one has to live with acne. If you really wanna be clear then just give it a try. You just have to be strong during your initial breakout because your skin will breakout more than ever. Anyway I know some of you visit this site for help on acne. Theres no need to read another review. Go to your dermatologist and ask for Trenitoin and Benzoyl Peroxide. It will change your bumpy life.

Most people do not understand that when you use Retin A it is normal for your acne to get worse the first few weeks of use. This is supposed to happen and means that your Retin A is working and doing what it is supposed to. This means that the Retin A is bring out all of the pimples that are laying under your skin waiting to come out. The Retin A brings the dormant pimples to the surface because it is making the process happen much faster. The worse your acne is, the worse your breakout will be. All of that acne would have come out on your face eventually anyway's but the Retin A is doing it's job to bring it out much more quickly. When all of the dormant pimples are out and then gone, it stops more from being produced so having to put up with a few weeks of bad acne is normal and will go away. You have to keep using it for it to work properly and i guarentee you that in a month or so you will be so happy you did. love the Retin A Micro. I am using the 0.01% and it works great. I use it at bed time only. I squeeze a small amount the size of a green pea into the lid of my Neo Strata Level 2 smoothing cream and mix with an equal amount of the Neo Strata and apply to my whole face. This method works best. Mix a pea sized amount with whatever moisturizer you use and apply at bed time.It is very important that you only use the pea sized amount because this cream is very powerful and that is all that is needed i assure you. I went through the,"my skin looks terrible stage", but my doctor told me to stick with it because that showed it was doing it's job and she was right. My skin is now more beautiful than it has ever been and i am 39 years old. I look 25 and get compliments everyday on my skin and how young i look. Stick with the bad skin fase and you will be so happy with the results. This is truly a miracle cream.

I owe my life to this product! I barely ever get any zits or pimples anymore. Before, I would have like 6 huge zits on my forehead, cheeks, chin..etcetera...with smaller pimples all over my forehead..but not anymore! Something that worked for me is washing my face in the morning and at night with Estee Lauder Splash Away Foaming Cleanser, which evens skin by making dry skin more hydrated and oily skin less oily (20 dollars but worth every last cent). I put Retin-A after washing my face at night. Somehow, the two work together really well and in the morning after I wash the Retin-A away with the cleanser my skin is extremely smooth. I have been following this procedure for about eight months now...before people would look at my face and have to hide their disgust, but now I get compliments about how beautiful my skin is. Another thing you guys (especially females) might want to research is milk, especially low-fat milk, being a cause of acne. It's still emerging research, but from personal experience...the time 5 months ago that I switched to soy milk the magic of Retin-A and the Estee Lauder cleanser increased exponentially.

I believe any acne prone person past puberty should use Retin-A, even if they have clear skin, because it will keep your skin clear. In my Junior year in High School, I had the worst acne in school'very severe, with cysts in my neck that caused me pain; they were big cysts, and I would squeeze them sometimes just to relieve pressure. I had face, body, and neck acne. I began the accutane treatment in the month of December of my Junior year. By the end of that year, I had clear skin. My senior year was a very good year on every level of a teenage boys life. Then after starting college I noticed pimples returning. Nothing bad, but it was annoying. I never really used acne products after the accutane, other than face washes. Several years later, my face and neck acne seems to be returning. In the beginning of 2009, I thought my acne would go away if I changed my diet, exercised, took multi vitamins, antioxidants, drink plenty of water, meditate to reduce stress'everything you can think of. I wash my face two times a day and never touch or pick pimples; but they kept getting worse. Beginning of 2010, I began using Retina-A .1% every night as directed, and a topical version of clindamycin every other morning. I've been doing this for two weeks now, and my IB wasn't as bad; the part that broke out the worst was the skin that is on my jaw line and under my ear. Retin-A and Accutane are the same drug; Accutane affects the entire body (even your hands, they become sensitive and dry and delicate to the sun), and Retin-A affects the areas where you apply it. When I began the treatment this year, I had no acne on my forehead, body, nose, and very little on my cheeks. It seemed to focus around my jawline and neck and forehead. My plan now is to stay on Retin-A, even after it clears my skin. I've read about the benefits of continuos use of Retin-A, even after acne goes away. The % should be lowered and the usage should be every other day.