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Tretinoin:
Tretinoin is made from Vitamin A (which is also known as a “retinoid”). This product is best known as an anti-acne treatment. It was first used in the 1970s for this purpose, when some young and middle – aged women reported improvement in fine wrinkles around their eyes when they were using this product for facial acne.
As a consequence, strict medical trials were performed in the late 1980s that proved that tretinoin could indeed reduce the appearance of fine facial wrinkling and also reduce the appearance of some facial hyperpigmentation (or age spots). It appears that tretinoin works by stimulating the production of collagen, which improves the skin’s appearance, and by also reducing the production of the pigment, melanin, in the skin.
As a result of this, tretinoin became the first and is still the only prescription drug able to claim that it could improve the roughness and fine wrinkling of sun damaged skin.
Hydroquinone:
Hydroquinone is a powerful skin bleaching agent. It works by stopping the pigment-producing cells in the skin from working. This pigment is called melanin and it is this which gives our skin its colour.
This is a reversible process and the skin can produce melanin again when hydroquinone is no longer used. It is often seen as the most effective topical product that dosctors use to treat melasma and other causes of hyperpigmentation (areas of darker coloured skin).