100% Niacinamide Powder.

"You have to mix the powder in with another product and you have to use the right amount, but you still don't really know what strength and concentration you're creating. It was fun in the beginning to be at home chemists mixing our lotions and potions, but it quickly became a little bit too much effort. They got everywhere with that powder and whatever you did, it never really merged with your serum well enough, so it was a little bit on the gritty side. The biggest issue was the scoop. The Ordinary recommended you use a quarter of the scoop that they provided. Why not just provide a scoop that was a quarter of the size? Why are we having to measure and eyeball it, which is never really a good thing when you're talking skincare? People didn't really know what strength they were using. It was a bit of a hot mess."

"I'm just not a big fan of it. I think niacinamide is overdone, it's in every skincare product. You don't need a separate serum or in this case a separate powder. My main product problem was the scoop. It gave you this tiny little scoop and then The Ordinary said to use one quarter of that scoop. How are you supposed to eyeball that? You just can't. For me, this is on every level I'm glad to see this go."

"The Ordinary Niacinamide Powder—I bought the hype when this came out. I thought it was amazing and I used it for months and then almost a year. It made my skin irritated, it made my skin burn. We've got an entire video of that debacle, and it was so difficult for me because I expected better from The Ordinary. I was excited about the brand, and I realized I was a victim of consumer marketing. Just the way your best friend can disappoint you, there can be products from a favorite brand that do not do your skin justice. The reason that The Ordinary launched some of their powdered formulas like the vitamin C is because vitamin C is unstable—you can mix it yourself, you know, kind of have a little fun with it. However, the niacinamide powder is stable. There's no reason it irritated my skin, but it irritates most people's skin. You shouldn't be using niacinamide at 100 percent, and most of the efficacy we see in formulations that are two to ten percent. Why do overkill? This one is a hard pass, even if it is on sale."

"After a year of using this, not only do I feel this didn't give me a boost, but I actually think it dried out my skin and I think it caused a little bit of irritation. I noticed white streaks on my face depending on how much I mixed in, and I found that it was too much. I have naturally oily acne-prone skin, but I noticed that part of my face was not as oily, and my skin dried out a little bit in the winter with a little bit of crepiness and more wrinkling. When I picked this up again in summer and put it on my face, I realized I was getting these tiny little breakouts, like tiny whiteheads right over my nose area that is relatively uncharacteristic for my skin. When isolating my variables and only using this, it showed up on my nose, and when I mixed this into other products, if it was the 100% Niacinamide Powder I would get a little niacinamide rash. The fact that anecdotally for me the rash and the irritation and the breakouts looked the same and they only happened when I used the powder, and after a day or two of stopping they would go away, and if I did it again they would flush up again. I just found this to be an extra step in my routine that for me caused a little bit more irritation and actually dryness to my skin, added a little bit of white streak to my face, wasn't really that enjoyable to use, and just didn't have a ton of benefits for me, especially when the niacinamide and zinc serum works so well for my oily acne-prone skin and doesn't leave me overly streaky and doesn't dry me out."