NATURIUM | AZELAIC TOPICAL ACID 10%

This product review was originally part of my blog article titled, The Best Azelaic Acid Serums and Creams From Paula's Choice, The Ordinary and Naturium – What Is Azelaic Acid and What Is Azelaic Acid Good for? You can catch the full piece here.

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A few weeks ago, I published a blog article titled, A Complete Oily Skin Routine From The Ordinary – Best Niacinamide Serum For Oily Skin, Best Oily Skin Mask With Salicylic Acid. In it, I offered a collection of five products which combined to form an ideal skincare routine for oily skin.

To put it together, I hit The Ordinary’s regimen builder on the Deciem website and, well, pretended I had oily skin. The products featured in my article were the result of my online consultation — and what appears to be the best skincare routine for oily skin composed of some of the best products from The Ordinary.

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One of the more intriguing products in the The Ordinary’s oily skin routine was the brand’s Azelaic Acid Suspension 10%. I had been planning this article on Azelaic Acid, one of the hottest ingredients in skincare, for several months now.

What Is Azelaic Acid and What Is Azelaic Acid Good for?

Azelaic Acid is one of those hidden gem ingredients that’s been recently repositioned as a highly effective, reliable substance for promoting skin health. It’s not a new ingredient, but it’s newly used in skincare. And like Niacinamide and Salicylic Acid, which are both oily skin essentials, anyone can use Azelaic Acid.

According to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team,

A type of acid known as a dicarboxylic acid derived from grains that offers numerous benefits when applied to skin. For example, it’s a gentle leave-on exfoliant which helps unclog pores and refine skin texture. Azelaic acid also significantly lessens factors in skin that lead to redness and bumps. Azelaic acid is also an antioxidant.
Research has shown azelaic acid can significantly diminish blemishes, help fade the appearance of post-acne red marks and other discolorations, and reduce the kind of skin sensitivity that leads to redness.
Although azelaic acid can be derived from grains like barley, wheat, and rye, its lab-engineered form is typically used in skincare products because of its stability and effectiveness. Because of this, azelaic acid is considered a synthetic ingredient, but this is a clear case where the synthetic version outperforms the natural version, with no research indicating a risk to skin.
Azelaic acid is available in strengths of 10% or less over-the-counter, and in topical prescription products at concentrations between 15-20%.

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Like Niacinamide, at higher concentrations, Azelaic Acid can have serious benefits for oily skin by helping to moderate sebum production and even calm irritation. Derived from grains like wheat and barley, Azelaic Acid is ideal for controlling surface oil and one of the most vexing concerns of oily skin — acne.

If you’re struggling with oily skin, I encourage you to have a look at my recent blog article on oily skin and some of the best products for your skin type.

For now, let’s have a look at oily skin’s newest BFF with one of the best serums made with Azelaic Acid…

Naturium | Azelaic Topical Acid 10%

I’ve only recently begun to explore Naturium’s clean, affordable skincare. Even if you haven’t had the chance to try anything from Naturium yet, you’ve probably been seeing it appear all over the place.

What is it?

Well, Naturium is a clean, affordable skincare brand with the kind of “single-note” serums that have been popularized by OG brands like The Ordinary and The Inkey List. They offer products similar to The Ordinary’s Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 and the Bakuchiol Cream from The Inkey List — a superb anti-aging cream and one of the best Bakuchiol creams for face with one percent of the Retinol alternative. (Psst…it costs just $9.99 at Sephora in the US.)

I included the Naturium Niacinamide Serum 12% Plus Zinc 2% in a recent blog article on my latest Niacinamide finds. With a concentration of 12% Niacinamide and 2% Zinc, it’s easily among the best brightening serums for oily- and acne-prone skin. If you’re curious, you can read my review of it here.

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I’ve actually been playing around with several of Naturium’s most popular serums and the Naturium Azelaic Topical Acid 10% certainly makes the cut. Yet, unlike the Paula’s Choice 10% Azelaic Acid Booster and The Ordinary’s Azelaic Acid Suspension 10% (reviewed just below), Naturium’s Azelaic Topical Acid 10% is a watery serum and even more easily layered.

I was curious about how and why Paula’s Choice and The Ordinary offer lightweight creams instead of a more watery serum similar to both brands’ Niacinamide offerings. Or how and why Naturium’s Azelaic Topical Acid 10% isn’t in a cream form.

As it turns out, Naturium uses a derivative of the pure Azelaic Acid that both Paula’s Choice and The Ordinary are using in their similar formulations — Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate. My googling led me to the discovery that formulating with Azelaic Acid is actually quite challenging — which may explain the dearth of Azelaic Acid products in the skincare marketplace considering its broad benefits for the skin.

According to the ingredient experts at INCI Decoder, Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate is a “derivative of clinically proven, superstar ingredient Azelaic Acid and hydrating amino acid Glycine. Azelaic acid is an awesome ingredient with anti-inflammatory, skin lightening and anti-acne effects, but its insolubility (it’s soluble neither in water nor in oil) makes it difficult to use it in a cosmetically elegant and versatile way.”

The INCI Decoder site goes on to explain that Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate is the near equivalent of Azelaic Acid with similar brightening and “sebum normalizing” activity.

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What Is Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate Used for and What is Azelaic Acid Derivative?

According to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team, the Azelaic Acid derivative Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate is “among the best ingredients for promoting skin health and for the maintenance of oily, acne-prone skin:

Has been studied for soothing sensitive skin conditions, including reducing redness
Known to offer improvement for uneven skin tone
Helps with issues related to excessive oiliness in skin
Water-soluble ingredient obtained from the condensation of azelaic acid mixed with glycine
The glycine component gives it a hydrating/moisturizing effect”

The Paula’s Choice Research Team continues:

Potassium azeloyl diglycinate offers many of the same benefits as pure azelaic acid (including the ability to improve uneven tone), with the advantage that is easier to incorporate into various types of cosmetic formulas due to its increased stability and compatibility. Of significance, potassium azeloyl diglycinate plays a role in reducing the appearance of redness and discomfort associated with sensitive skin.
Potassium azeloyl diglycinate is a water-soluble ingredient obtained from the condensation of azelaic acid mixed with glycine. The glycine gives it a hydrating/moisturizing effect that helps improve conditions for compromised skin.
Simultaneously, potassium azeloyl diglycinate has the ability to normalize and in turn help minimize excess oil in skin. This can help with skin issues associated the overproduction of sebum (think clogged pores, breakouts, etc.).
More research is necessary to determine the concentration range needed to produce optimal results, but from the studies currently available as well as information from ingredient suppliers, we can conclude that a 0.5% concentration is beneficial for soothing skin, while amounts between 2–3% can help fade skin discolorations and influence sebum.

With its watery texture, something I prefer as it allows me to layer multiple serums into my routine, Naturium Azelaic Topical Acid 10% is quite a nice (and yes, elegant!) formula. And like the Paula's Choice 10% Azelaic Acid Booster, it’s got much more going for it than its one-note name implies.

In addition to 10% Azelaic Acid, the Naturium formula contains two other power brighteners, Niacinamide and Ethyl Ascorbic Acid — a stable, water-soluble Vitamin C derivative that is metabolized into Vitamin C upon penetration of the skin. There’s even a smattering of Coffee Seed Extract for a solid antioxidant defense when combined with the Niacinamide and Vitamin C in the formula.

I have to say I’m super impressed with Naturium so far and the Naturium Azelaic Topical Acid 10% is easily one of my favorite new skincare discoveries of 2021.

SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the Naturium Azelaic Topical Acid 10% for $20 here.

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