Does Niacinamide Work?What the Skin Trials Show

Niacinamide, also called nicotinamide, is a form of vitamin B3 that turns up in serums and creams promising smoother, brighter, clearer skin. Here is what the trials behind those claims found, and who ran them.

Aging skin

In a 12-week trial, 50 women aged 40 to 60 used a plain moisturizer on one side of the face and the same moisturizer with 5% niacinamide on the other, without knowing which was which.¹ The niacinamide side improved more in:¹

• Fine lines and wrinkles
• Dark spots
• Texture
• Red blotchiness
• Sallowness, a yellowish tone

It was well tolerated.¹ The study was run by researchers at Procter & Gamble.¹

Dark spots

In Japanese women, the same company’s researchers found:²

• 18 women with dark spots used a 5% niacinamide moisturizer and a plain one in a paired design.²
• 120 women with tanned faces were assigned to plain moisturizer, sunscreen, or 2% niacinamide plus sunscreen.²
• Niacinamide reduced dark spots and lightened skin compared with plain moisturizer after 4 weeks.²

Acne

In a US trial, 76 people with moderate acne used a 4% nicotinamide gel or 1% clindamycin, an antibiotic gel, twice a day for 8 weeks.³

	Nicotinamide gel	Clindamycin gel
Improved	82%3	68%3
Fewer red bumps	60% fewer3	43% fewer3

The difference wasn’t significant, so the authors called them comparable.³ But a Cochrane review of acne treatments found that the four nicotinamide trials didn’t measure patients’ own rating of improvement, and rated the evidence for most of these treatments low or very low quality.⁴

What this means for your shelf

• For aging skin and dark spots, niacinamide has positive trials, but they’re small and largely run by one company.
• For acne, it’s a reasonable option to try, with weaker evidence than standard treatments. See why you’re breaking out as an adult.
• Sunscreen still matters for dark spots; in the Japanese trial, niacinamide was tested alongside sunscreen.² See what the dark patches on your face are.
• Give it time: the trials ran 4 to 12 weeks.

Try: “I’m using a niacinamide serum for dark spots and early lines. Is it worth continuing, and what has stronger evidence for my skin?”

Skin, Head to Toe covers niacinamide’s oil claims in Chapter 5, “Oily by Noon, Tight by Bedtime,” in a section called “Sebum, the Oil on Its Own Schedule.” Its Shelf allows one evidence-backed active per concern, so you can tell whether this one is doing anything. See the book.