Niacinamide for acne prone & sensitive skin?

I've been starting to use it in combination with Azelaic Acid! Info from Healthline & various articles I've read: Azelaic Acid has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. It helps prevent breakouts, reduce redness (post inflammatory erythema), and reduce the appearence of post inflammatory hyperpigmentation. Azelaic Acid also combines well with other products. In turn, Niaciname would help treat hyperpigmentation, minimizes redness, protects your skin from sun damage, helps with sun damaged skin, helps with inflammatory acne, good for eczema prone skin, oil control (regulates how much oil your skin produces which would also help with acne and dry skin). Using them together would be very beneficial! Starting at a lower concentration like 4% or 5% might cause less irritation (it also depends on the formulation)! It's always best to slowly work your way up to a higher concentration. For example, the ordinary 10% niacinamide would be too strong to start off with. But both of these products generally cause itching. Though, I have eczema prone skin so maybe that's why it was a bit itchy. A tip I've heard is to put the products in the fridge so it can be cold when you use it and it would feel less itchy. After 1 month of use the itching went away for me :D In my PM routine, I started using a 10% azelaic acid cream, then went up to a 15% gel and started incorporating a 4% niacinamide gel. So far I've seen improvements in skin texture, less inflamed acne (my acne used to hurt and get super red lol), pimples go away faster and leave less of a mark, & I haven't used it long enough to see improvement in dark spots (it's only been around 2 months, dark spots take more time to fade). It's also necessary to use sunscreen with this so that PIH/dark spots don't get worse. Sidenote: Over 15% of azelaic acid is prescription only in some countries, but you can buy it over the counter in other countries. 10% works the same, just slower. Cost of products (most in USD, one in RP): 💰 $7.90 The Ordinary azelaic acid cream 10% 1 oz. 💰 $36.00 Paula's choice azelaic acid cream 10% 1 oz. 💰 $28.95 Finacea gel azelaic acid gel 15% 30g (not available in some countries) 💰 $11.50 Azclear azelaic acid cream 20% 25g (not available in some countries) 💰 $22.38 Isispharma metroruboril 15% azelaic acid cream 30ml/1 oz 💰 $20.00 Naturium Azelaic Acid 10% 30ml/1 oz. 💰 $12.59 Freederm Treatment Gel 4% niacinamide 10g 💰 Rp 89.000 5% Niacinamide + Moisture Sabi Beet Serum 20ml

niacinamide is amazing! however, it did irritate my sensitive skin (the ordinary niacinamide) so I try to find products with a small amount of niacinamide, my skin tolerates this better! I use a centella serum with niacinamide in it which my skin seems to really like, not sure if this is something you could try if you were sensitive to it before?

Yes, niacinamide is good for all those concerns. However, some people get irritated with a high concentration of it especially common in The Ordinary's niacinamide which is 10%. 2 to 5% is enough to get results. I suggest looking for a niacinamide with lower strength. I personally love the Inkey List's although it still has that high 10% concentration, they formulated it with hyaluronic acid which I feel makes it more gentle on sensitive skin

I was hesitant to use Niacinamide at first, reading here that many users' skin get irritated by it. But I was still swayed by its great benefits so I gave the 5% Niacinamide a try. It didn't cause any irritation. My skin was fine with it. In less than a month, my skin wasn't so dull and acne wasn't that worse like before. I guess it depends on your skin and the product too. BTW, I'm using a local product called apotheke science.