Do you need Niacinamide in your skincare?

The short answer: Probably not ('need' is a pretty strong word!)

The long-ish answer:
Niacinamide (also known as nicotinamide - NA) is the biologically ‘active’ form of vitamin B3 (niacin). As a topical, it is claimed to be beneficial for virtually everything – from clearing pigmentation to protecting against UV radiation to being an anti-inflammatory useful for the treatment of acne rosacea and vulgaris.

Considering how much effort and money has gone into marketing this topical ingredient, you are forgiven for thinking that you have to have it. But do you really? What does the research say?

Not very much, unfortunately. I will list a handful of the references in the comments for anyone interested, but in summary all the ‘positive’ studies published in the past 15 years showing how effective NA is either have major methodological or statistical analysis flaws or are industry sponsored or both. Any study not sponsored by industry shows equivocal or negative findings.

This puts the spotlight on the major issue in ‘skincare science’ in the past 20 years: industry sponsored clinical trials. What that means is the company who pays for the study is also the company that makes the product being studied. It is the equivalent of you baking a cake for a baking competition and you also being the taste-tester and the judge. Who do you think is going to win the competition, especially if winning could make you millions of pounds in cash?

So do you need to spend extra cash on a fancy moisturiser that has NA in it or a NA serum to help you get ‘better’ skin? Nope. But if you like the products, they are totally fine to use and not harmful. Just don’t expect them to be magic.