If you have ever wondered if the miracle product retinol is right for you, you are not alone. I spent hours searching Reddit skin care to find out if it was something I should be using and which version was right for me. And then when I use it, whether it works properly.
I'm one of the nine out of 10 women who feel frustrated with skincare and can't decide which products are best for me, according to cosmetics giant L'Oreal. There's “joy” in experimenting with makeup, but experimenting with skincare is “frustrating,” says Giv Baluch, the company's global managing director of augmented beauty and open innovation.
“Part of the problem with that is the fact that we do a lot of auditions without the facts and science behind what our individual skin actually needs,” Baluch says.
Last year I tried some of the State-of-the-art L'Oreal technology products at Vivatech in Paris, including Kiehl's Derma-Reader, an imaging machine that can examine your skin and make product recommendations. The Derma-Reader was fascinating to experiment with, but the technology only sees the top level of your skin's surface and also only recommends Kiehl's products as a treatment, which may not be the best for you.
On CES 2025 this year, the company introduced the new device, the Cell BioPrintcollaboration with Korean beauty technology company NanoEnTek. It may take getting under our skin and reading the biomarkers to tell us if we should react to certain ingredients – like retinol, for example – and then matching our skin with the right products.
Watch this: I let L'Oréal let my cells know which products are good for my skin (and you can too!)
I was excited to try the technology, as I've experimented a bit with retinol over the years and haven't been able to figure out if it's for me. Retinol – a form of vitamin A – is affordable, available over the counter and promises to smooth fine lines and wrinkles, reduce enlarged pores and treat acne. But it also has its downsides: namely that your skin can take a long time to adjust to it, and in the meantime it can become dry and flaky, or it can cause acne breakouts.
I quit retinol twice during an ongoing acne cleanse, often referred to as the retinol ugliness. But as the L'Oreal imaging tech told me, my skin's age is three years older than my actual age, and if I can tolerate retinol, the anti-aging effects might be worth it.
What Cell BioPrint revealed to me
My experience with Cell BioPrint began by wiping my skin multiple times with a sticker to collect the skin cells. The sticker went into the cartridge and it took about 1 minute to remove everything but the protein from my skin. The liquid in the cartridge containing the proteins is then squeezed from a dropper onto a test strip and inserted into the Cell BioPrint machine on the table, which took about 90 seconds to read my biomarkers.
The good news: the L'Oreal tech told me that my skin had a high reaction to retinol, with a score of 75 out of 100, which L'Oreal identified as “needing attention.” Along with retinol, she recommended SkinCeuticals Salicylic Acid Serum and PCA IT Zinc Cosmetic Cream.
I really appreciated the scientific analysis of my skin, which made me persevere with retinol the next time I give up, even though I may have to start with a lower concentration than I used before. I also liked that the service, which is designed to provide in-store skin analysis, was able to tap into L'Oreal's vast library of skin care products, rather than single-brand solutions.
“We have so many choices today, and what we need to understand is what are the right choices for our biology and our needs?” Baluch said. “Many products take time to work. So this is really about seeing the invisible and taking the guessing game out and getting the most accurate products.”