Niacinamide.

"My favorite way to put it out is jack of all trades, master of none. So it can be there in anything. It can be paired well with every ingredient mostly and it can help with every concern. So it's just there. It's good to have but it's not a mandatory ingredient. It helps with oil control a little bit, dark spots a little bit, skin rejuvenation. It does a lot of things and I fail to understand the exact mechanism of action of niacinamide. Every time I read about it I'm left with a little bit of confusion. But I think it's not necessary to have, it's good to have. I look at niacinamide as like a supportive ingredient. Alone it will not do anything but it is a very good supportive ingredient. It helps with better action of everything else that it's paired with. I usually prefer niacinamide in slightly younger patients who have decent skin and who want to maintain their skin, don't have real complaints but want to improve the quality of the skin. But niacinamide as an alone ingredient is not much of a help, so as a single ingredient serum I don't think so. I think it's waste of money and time. Niacinamide with zinc is a great combination, niacinamide with salicylic acid is a great combination, in a vitamin C if you have niacinamide that's also okay, retinol with niacinamide also makes it a little more tolerable on the skin."

"Niacinamide is an antioxidant, absolutely protecting the skin from free radical damage. But is it the best antioxidant out there? Not really. You're best sticking with your pycnogenols, your vitamin C's, your other amazing antioxidants that just deliver a little bit better. I believe that niacinamide in moderation as part of a comprehensive skincare routine is absolutely wonderful, but expecting it to do everything with just one ingredient, you're just setting yourself up for failure. Studies show it works best at between a two and a five percent concentration. But we have products formulating with 10%, 20%, 12%. When a product is trendy, brands know our minds automatically think the best results are going to come from the highest percentage, so they doubled or more the recommended amount. But all that extra niacinamide was really getting was extra irritation, sensitivity, and side effects. They weren't actually getting extra benefits."