No. Niacinamide does not make your skin purge or peel.
How can you be sure?
Purging is not a benefit of niacinamide; it has many benefits, but purging is not one of them.
What is purging?
Purging occurs when there is cellular turnover. Cellular turnover is when old cells from the skin’s surface get replaced by younger cells.
Because of cell turnover (old cells get replaced by new cells, meaning old cells in the top layer are removed), some breakouts beneath the top old cells are suddenly exposed. This is only temporary. Regular use of products that can purge skin will eventually lead to beneficial results for the skin.
Niacinamide offers multiple benefits to the skin – but purging is not one of them.
What products cause the skin to purge?
2 examples:
Exfoliating products
Vitamin A, like retinol
How does your skin look when it purges?
Flaky.
Some peeling.
Breakouts like pimples
Flakiness, peeling, and breakouts are all temporary. Just for a few days – and then skin brightens up.
Exfoliating products and retinol products increase cellular turnover. During cellular turnover, the cells from the top layer get replaced by younger cells from deeper layers; in the process, when the top layer is replaced, some of the pimples that were in the deeper layers get exposed. This is a good thing because we want these nasties to get to the top layer so that they can eventually disappear.
We don’t have to go too deep into purging here – all that we need to know for this post is that niacinamide does not cause purging because it does not cause cellular turnover.
But my skin looks red, and I am sure it’s the niacinamide…
Niacinamide, if properly used, should not cause redness. If it’s incorrectly used, it can make your skin inflamed and red.
When people complain about purging from niacinamide, they are likely experiencing irritation on their skin and not purging.