Retinol Room.

Medik8 vs Naturium Retinal

The rare comparison where both brands print the number — and the numbers are ten times apart. Medik8 Crystal Retinal 1 is a stated 0.01% retinaldehyde; Naturium's cream serum is a stated 0.10%, in a bigger bottle, for less money. Which of those two facts matters depends entirely on whether you have used a retinoid before.

By Stephen V.Last updated How we pick

For most people who already use a retinol comfortably, buy Naturium Retinaldehyde Cream Serum 0.10%. It states its strength, it is a mid rung rather than a token one, the 50 ml cream-serum bottle is large enough to treat face, neck and chest without rationing, and it costs a fraction of the Medik8 per millilitre.

Buy Medik8 Crystal Retinal 1instead if you have never used a retinoid, or if a previous attempt went badly. Rung 1 is a published 0.01% retinaldehyde — one tenth of the Naturium figure — and it sits at the bottom of a numbered range (1, 3, 6, 10, 20, 24) whose own strengths Medik8 publishes, so moving up is a planned step rather than a guess. You are paying a premium for the gentlest honest starting point in this category and for the ladder above it.

That is the whole comparison, and it is unusually clean, because this is one of the few pairings on this site where bothbrands publish a figure. Most retinol comparisons on this site turn into an argument about ingredient lists precisely because nobody will print a percentage. Here you can compare dose to dose — so the real question is not which brand is better, it is which rung of the retinal ladder you should be standing on.

Four picks below — the two products in the title, plus the cheapest way onto the ladder and the gentlest cream version — then what retinal is, then how to read the two numbering systems against each other.

How this is funded: we earn a commission if you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which product we recommend, and we’ll tell you when we’d skip one. Full disclosure.

Quick picks

Ranked on formulation, stated concentration and buyer fit. Select a row to jump to the full write-up. We have not tested these products — here is exactly what we do instead.

#ProductBest forPrice
1
Naturium Retinaldehyde Cream Serum 0.10%

Naturium Retinaldehyde Cream Serum 0.10%

A stated 0.10% retinal in a cream-serum base, sold in a 1.7 oz size explicitly for face, neck and chest. That size-and-scope combination is unusual and genuinely useful: most retinals come in 1 oz bottles you end up rationing for the face alone.

Best for most retinol-experienced skin
$23.09 · View on Amazon

$32.0028% off

Price as of October 17, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

2
Medik8 Crystal Retinal 1 Night Serum

Medik8 Crystal Retinal 1 Night Serum

The entry rung of the best-known retinal ladder in skincare — and, unlike most of the shelf, one that publishes the figure behind every rung. Medik8 numbers the range 1, 3, 6, 10, 20 and 24 and prints the matching percentage (0.01% to 0.24%), which is a structurally honest way to sell a potent active. You just pay premium prices at every rung.

Best first retinal, and the only published ladder
$56.00 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 17, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

3
The Ordinary Retinal 0.2% Emulsion

The Ordinary Retinal 0.2% Emulsion

The cheapest way into retinaldehyde by a wide margin, and it states its strength — a labeled 0.2% retinal in a light emulsion. Retinal is a genuinely strong rung, so the low price should not be read as a low commitment.

Cheapest high rung, if you are already there
$14.90 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 17, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

4
Avene Retrinal 0.05% Anti-Aging Retinaldehyde Cream

Avene Retrinal 0.05% Anti-Aging Retinaldehyde Cream

The gentlest sensible way into retinal: a stated 0.05% in a cream base from a French pharmacy brand built around reactive skin. If retinol has irritated you and you still want to move up the family rather than down, this is the entry point.

Best cream alternative for reactive skin
$49.50 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 17, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

The picks in full

#1Best for most retinol-experienced skin

Naturium Retinaldehyde Cream Serum 0.10%

A stated 0.10% retinal in a cream-serum base, sold in a 1.7 oz size explicitly for face, neck and chest. That size-and-scope combination is unusual and genuinely useful: most retinals come in 1 oz bottles you end up rationing for the face alone.

Strengths

  • States 0.10% retinal — a mid rung you can actually place on the ladder
  • 1.7 oz is enough to cover neck and chest without rationing
  • Cream-serum texture is more cushioning than a thin emulsion

Trade-offs

  • Larger bottles take longer to finish, and retinal degrades once opened
  • Still a real retinoid dose over a large area — introduce it slowly
Key activeRetinaldehyde (retinal)
Stated concentration0.10%
FormatCream serum
Fragrance-freeNot published
Best forNormal, Dry, Mature

Formulation note. A stated 0.10% retinaldehyde in a cream-serum base, listed for face, neck and chest. Sold alongside a 0.05% and a 0.15% in the same line, so the range functions as a ladder in the same way The Ordinary's retinols do.

Ingredients and claims read from the product listing, on August 11, 2026. “Not published” means the brand does not state that figure.

#2Best first retinal, and the only published ladder

Medik8 Crystal Retinal 1 Night Serum

The entry rung of the best-known retinal ladder in skincare — and, unlike most of the shelf, one that publishes the figure behind every rung. Medik8 numbers the range 1, 3, 6, 10, 20 and 24 and prints the matching percentage (0.01% to 0.24%), which is a structurally honest way to sell a potent active. You just pay premium prices at every rung.

Strengths

  • Publishes an exact 0.01% retinaldehyde, and a stated figure for every rung above it
  • Part of an explicit 1 / 3 / 6 / 10 / 20 / 24 ladder, so progression is planned rather than improvised
  • Hyaluronic acid and vitamin E in the base, per the listing

Trade-offs

  • Premium pricing, and the ladder above it costs more at every rung
  • The rung number is not the percentage — 1 means 0.01%, so it cannot be read against a retinol figure directly
Key activeRetinaldehyde (retinal)
Stated concentration0.01%
FormatNight serum
Fragrance-freeNot published
Best forSensitive, Normal, Beginner-to-retinal

Formulation note. Sold as Crystal Retinal 1, the lowest rung of a numbered range that also includes 3, 6, 10, 20 and 24. The number is the rung, not the dose — but Medik8 publishes the dose behind each one on its own Crystal Retinal range page (read 2026-09-01), where rung 1 is stated as 0.01% twin-encapsulated retinaldehyde and rung 24 as 0.24%. The base carries hyaluronic acid and vitamin E, per the listing.

Ingredients and claims read from the product listing, on August 11, 2026. “Not published” means the brand does not state that figure.

#3Cheapest high rung, if you are already there

The Ordinary Retinal 0.2% Emulsion

The cheapest way into retinaldehyde by a wide margin, and it states its strength — a labeled 0.2% retinal in a light emulsion. Retinal is a genuinely strong rung, so the low price should not be read as a low commitment.

Strengths

  • States an exact 0.2% retinal, which most retinal products do not
  • Dramatically cheaper than every other retinal on this page
  • Light emulsion base layers easily under a moisturizer

Trade-offs

  • 0.2% retinal is a high rung, not a starter — it is not where a beginner should begin
  • Small 0.5 fl oz bottle, so it does not last as long as the price suggests
Key activeRetinaldehyde (retinal)
Stated concentration0.2%
FormatLight emulsion
Fragrance-freeNot published
Best forRetinol-experienced, Normal

Formulation note. Retinaldehyde sits one conversion step from retinoic acid, where retinol sits two. That is why a 0.2% retinal is not comparable to a 0.2% retinol — the numbers look similar and the potency is not.

Ingredients and claims read from the product listing, on August 11, 2026. “Not published” means the brand does not state that figure.

#4Best cream alternative for reactive skin

Avene Retrinal 0.05% Anti-Aging Retinaldehyde Cream

The gentlest sensible way into retinal: a stated 0.05% in a cream base from a French pharmacy brand built around reactive skin. If retinol has irritated you and you still want to move up the family rather than down, this is the entry point.

Strengths

  • States 0.05% retinal — a true entry rung, plainly labeled
  • Cream base from a brand whose whole positioning is reactive skin
  • A far more forgiving starting point than a 0.2% retinal

Trade-offs

  • Pharmacy pricing — several times the cost of a budget retinal
  • 0.05% is deliberately modest; you will likely want to step up in time
Key activeRetinaldehyde (retinal)
Stated concentration0.05%
FormatAnti-aging cream
Fragrance-freeNot published
Best forSensitive, Dry, Beginner-to-retinal

Formulation note. A stated 0.05% retinaldehyde in a cream rather than a serum, from Avene's thermal-spring-water range. The low stated figure is the point — retinal is potent enough that starting at the bottom of the ladder is the sensible move.

Ingredients and claims read from the product listing, on August 11, 2026. “Not published” means the brand does not state that figure.

What retinal is, and why the numbers are not retinol numbers

Retinaldehyde — retinal for short — sits one conversion step from retinoic acid, the form your skin actually uses. Retinol sits two. That single step is the entire argument for the category, and the published work on it is real but modest: the indexed record on retinaldehyde is small next to the tretinoin literature, which is why this site treats retinal as a sensible rung rather than a different species of product. Our retinol vs retinal comparison sets out the conversion chain in full.

The practical consequence is the one people get wrong when they put these two products side by side: a retinal percentage is not comparable to a retinol percentage. A 0.10% retinal is not “a fifth of a 0.5% retinol”; it is a different molecule one step further along. Nobody has published a conversion table that would let anyone claim otherwise, and we are not going to invent one.

The two numbering systems, read straight

Medik8’s range is numbered by rung, not by dose: Crystal Retinal 1is a published 0.01% retinaldehyde, and the brand states 0.03%, 0.06%, 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.24% for rungs 3, 6, 10, 20 and 24 — figures read from Medik8’s own Crystal Retinal range pages. So the Naturium product you can buy today sits level with Medik8’s rung 10, not rung 1. That is the sentence this comparison exists to deliver, and it is the one every “Medik8 or Naturium” thread gets tangled in.

Naturium numbers by percentage directly and sells 0.05%, 0.10% and 0.15% in the same line, so its range also functions as a ladder — just a shorter one that starts where Medik8’s middle is.

The four differences that decide it

  1. Stated dose. 0.01% against 0.10%. If you have never used a retinoid, the low number is a feature; if you have used a 0.5% retinol for a year, rung 1 is unlikely to do much you can see, and buying it is buying the ladder rather than the result.
  2. Size and coverage.30 ml against 50 ml. Retinal is the category people most often want to use on the neck and chest as well as the face, and that is a materially larger area — the published fingertip-unit figures put the face and neck together at about 2.5 units. The bigger bottle is the one you do not ration.
  3. Base. A night serum against a cream serum. The cream base is the more cushioning of the two, which matters more at the higher dose, not less.
  4. What the ladder costs.Medik8’s structure is its real product, and every rung above 1 costs more again. Naturium’s three strengths are all in the same price band. Over the ten months the retinoid record suggests it takes to see the published kind of change, that difference compounds.

Which to buy, by situation

Never used any retinoid:Medik8 Crystal Retinal 1, or the Avène Retrinal 0.05% cream if you would rather have a cream than a serum and a pharmacy brand built around reactive skin. Both print a low figure, which is the only responsible way to start a potent molecule.

Comfortable on a stated 0.3–0.5% retinol: Naturium 0.10%. This is the pick for the majority of people reading this comparison.

Already on a retinal and want the cheapest step up:The Ordinary Retinal 0.2% Emulsion, which is level with Medik8’s rung 20 at a fraction of the price. It is a 15 ml bottle, so the cost per month is less of a bargain than the cost per bottle suggests, and it is emphatically not a starting point.

Treating neck and chest as well as the face: Naturium again, on volume. Our neck and chest picks explain why coverage beats strength for that area.

What neither brand publishes

Neither one publishes stability data for its own formula. That matters more for retinal than for most actives: the validated study of 16 retinoid derivatives across 12 commercial cosmetics found degradation ranging from none to total over six months, worse with light than with heat — so packaging and storage are a real variable and neither company has shown you its numbers. Both products are opaque and both should live in a drawer rather than on a sunny shelf. Medik8’s listing describes a twin-encapsulated retinaldehyde, which is a formulation claim rather than a published stability result, and we treat it as the former.

Neither publishes a clinical trial of its own product either. Every efficacy expectation on this page comes from the retinoid literature in general, not from a study of these two serums, and anyone telling you one of them “outperformed” the other is telling you something nobody has measured.

How to run either one

Two nights a week for the first fortnight, on dry skin after cleansing, moisturizer over the top, sunscreen every morning, and no acids on the same night while you are settling in. If you are moving to the Naturium from a retinol, treat it as a step up rather than a swap — our step-up guide is the one to read first, and our full retinal roundup covers every stated-strength retinal we list.

Frequently asked questions

Is Medik8 Crystal Retinal 1 stronger than Naturium 0.10%?

No — it is ten times weaker by stated dose. Medik8 numbers its range by rung rather than by percentage: rung 1 is a published 0.01% retinaldehyde, and the brand's own range pages put 0.1% at rung 10. Naturium's cream serum states 0.10%, so it sits level with Medik8's rung 10, not its rung 1.

Which is better value?

Naturium, clearly, on stated dose per millilitre: a higher published strength in a 50 ml bottle at a mid-range price against 30 ml at a premium one. The case for the Medik8 is not value, it is the structured ladder and the genuinely low first rung — which is worth paying for if a low first rung is what you need.

Can I switch straight from a retinol to a retinal?

Usually yes, if you are using the retinol comfortably every other night or more, but treat it as a step up rather than a like-for-like swap: drop back to two nights a week for a fortnight, keep the moisturizer, and do not run acids on the same nights while you settle in. Retinal is one conversion step closer to retinoic acid than retinol, so the same number on the label does not mean the same effect on skin.

Is retinal better than retinol?

It is closer to the active form, which is a real structural advantage, and its published record is far smaller than the retinoid literature as a whole. Our retinol vs retinal comparison lays out both halves. The practical answer is that a retinal you use nightly for ten months beats a retinol you abandon in week three, and vice versa.

Do either of these need to be refrigerated?

No brand here instructs that, and we would not invent an instruction. What the published stability work does support is keeping any retinoid out of light and heat: in the 12-product study, light caused worse degradation than warmth. A closed drawer is the sensible place for both bottles.

Which one should I buy for my neck and chest?

The Naturium, on volume and base. The brand lists it for face, neck and chest, the 50 ml bottle covers that area without rationing, and a cream serum sits better on chest skin than a thin emulsion. Introduce it there slowly — chest skin is thinner and more sun-exposed than the face.

Sources

  • Tolerance profile of retinol, retinaldehyde and retinoic acid under maximized and long-term clinical conditions (PubMed) — Retinol and retinaldehyde share a low irritation potential; retinoic acid (tretinoin) is more irritating (accessed July 17, 2026)
  • American Academy of Dermatology — Retinoid or retinol? — AAD on the difference between prescription retinoids and OTC retinol (accessed July 17, 2026)
  • Draelos ZD, Peterson RS — Newly formulated retinol serums vs tretinoin cream in escalating doses (J Drugs Dermatol, 2020) — Twelve-week double-blind study in 45 photoaged women aged 35 to 65 (Fitzpatrick I-IV) using a STEP-UP protocol: retinol serum escalated 0.25% then 0.5% then 1.0%, or tretinoin cream 0.025% then 0.05% then 0.1%, each with a moisturizer. The two were at parity on investigator and subject assessment and on TEWL at week 12; retinol improved visual smoothness more than tretinoin at week 4 (P = 0.031) and skin dryness significantly (P < 0.001); week-12 punch biopsies showed newly formed collagen and GREATER epidermal thickening in the retinol group. Industry-adjacent cosmetic research, not an independent trial — cited for the escalation method and the direction of the histology (accessed September 18, 2026)
  • Voorhees JJ — Clinical effects of long-term therapy with topical tretinoin and cellular mode of action (J Int Med Res, 1990) — Double-blind, placebo-controlled study: 0.1% topical tretinoin reduced the effects of photoageing maximally after 10 months, with no further improvement between 10 and 22 months. Histologically it induced 'epidermal hyperplasia, compaction of the stratum corneum and the deposition of ultrastructurally visible collagen fibrils in the papillary dermis', reduced the number and activity of melanocytes, and significantly increased mitoses (accessed September 18, 2026)
  • Temova Rakuša Ž, Škufca P, Kristl A, Roškar R — Retinoid stability and degradation kinetics in commercial cosmetic products (J Cosmet Dermatol, 2021) — Validated HPLC-UV study of 16 retinoid derivatives (retinol, retinyl palmitate, beta-carotene and hydroxypinacolone retinoate) in 12 commercial cosmetics over 6 months of long-term and accelerated stability testing plus a one-week photostability study. Retinoid degradation followed first-order kinetics; the products showed a 0%-80% decline after 6 months at 25 °C and a 40%-100% decline at 40 °C; 'light degradation was more pronounced than temperature-induced degradation'; instabilities were 'formulation-dependent and associated with lower contents than declared in some cosmetics'. Cited for the size of the stability problem a sealed single-dose format is built to solve — the study did not test this product (accessed September 19, 2026)
  • Long CC, Finlay AY — The finger-tip unit: a new practical measure (Clin Exp Dermatol, 1991) — The paper that defined the fingertip unit. Thirty adult patients treated various body regions; the number of FTUs required was face and neck 2.5, front of trunk 6.7, back of trunk 6.8, arm and forearm 3.3, hand 1.2, leg and thigh 5.8, foot 1.8. One FTU covers 286 cm2 (s.d. 80) — 312 cm2 in males, 257 cm2 in females. It is a dermatological DOSING measure for ointments, not a retinol instruction, and is cited here only as the published way to reason about how much topical product an area takes (accessed September 18, 2026)
  • U.S. FDA — 21 CFR 701.3, Designation of ingredients (eCFR) — The federal rule governing how a cosmetic ingredient list is ordered. Paragraph (a): 'The label on each package of a cosmetic shall bear a declaration of the name of each ingredient in descending order of predominance, except that fragrance or flavor may be listed as fragrance or flavor.' Paragraph (f) allows an alternative: ingredients 'present at a concentration greater than 1 percent, in descending order of predominance', followed by ingredients 'present at a concentration of not more than 1 percent, without respect to order of predominance', followed by color additives 'without respect to order of predominance'. Cited for the exact limit of what an ingredient's POSITION can tell a reader: late placement indicates the 1-percent-or-less group, but within that group the order carries no information about quantity (accessed September 26, 2026)

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