Both get sold as the gentle, plant-based answer to retinol. Both turn up on the same "retinol alternative" roundups. Line up what has actually been tested, though, in whom and for how long, and they are nowhere near each other.
We make our serum and moisturiser with Bidens Pilosa. So you should probably hear this from us before you spend anything on it.
Bakuchiol: the one with a human trial
Bakuchiol comes from the seeds and leaves of Psoralea corylifolia. It is not a retinoid, whatever the marketing says. Different molecule entirely, which seems to reach some of the same pathways in skin by another route.
The study everyone cites ran in 2019 in the British Journal of Dermatology. Forty-four adults with sun-damaged skin used either 0.5% bakuchiol twice a day or 0.5% retinol once a day, for twelve weeks. Randomised, double-blind, with a dermatologist grading pigmentation and redness from high-resolution photos without knowing who was in which group.
Wrinkle area and pigmentation dropped in both groups, with no statistically significant gap between them. Where they split was comfort: the retinol group reported more scaling and stinging.
Forty-four people is small. Twelve weeks is short. It is still a real randomised comparison in real skin, and in this corner of the shelf that is unusual.
Bidens Pilosa: the one with laboratory evidence
Bidens pilosa grows wild across the tropics and goes by blackjack or picão preto. The cosmetic version is usually a supercritical CO2 extract, heavy in phytol and fatty acids.
Its evidence base is a 2015 paper. The extract was tested on cultured human skin fibroblasts and on fragments of human skin left over from eyelid surgery, each for 48 hours.
Collagen went up 32.5% at the lowest dose. Elastin went up 25.2% at the highest. Expression of RXR, a retinoid receptor, rose 3.6-fold, and the authors suggest phytol is responsible, since its structure looks something like a retinoid.
What rarely makes it into the product copy is the rest of it. Nobody ran a clinical trial, so no one put this on their face for twelve weeks and had the result measured. Everything above happened in a dish, or in a piece of skin kept alive for two days. Retinoic acid also beat the extract on the headline numbers in the same paper, raising collagen 62.9% and elastin 66.7%, roughly double, and the authors say so themselves.
The phytol explanation, meanwhile, is a hypothesis. The authors call it possible, not shown. Several of them also work for the raw material company whose ingredient was under test, which is ordinary enough in cosmetic science, but worth knowing while you read their conclusions.
Side by side
| Bakuchiol | Bidens Pilosa | |
|---|---|---|
| Source | Psoralea corylifolia seeds and leaves | Bidens pilosa, CO2 extract |
| Human clinical trial | Yes, randomised and double-blind | None published |
| What was tested | 44 people, 12 weeks | Cell cultures and skin fragments, 48 hours |
| Compared with retinol directly? | Yes, 0.5% against 0.5% | Only in the lab |
| How it did | No significant difference in wrinkles or pigmentation | Ahead on some markers, behind on collagen and elastin |
| Comfort | Less scaling and stinging than retinol | Not measured in people |
So which one should you buy?
If the strongest published human evidence is your only test, buy bakuchiol. We would rather tell you that than pretend our ingredient won a race it never entered.
That test assumes the active is the only thing in the bottle that matters, though, and for most people it is not what decides whether a product works out.
A well-studied active sitting in a formula full of fragrance and allergens will still leave reactive skin irritated. The irritation was the reason you went looking for a retinol alternative in the first place. Then there is the question of whether you can even read what you are buying, since plenty of brands publish half an ingredient list and call the rest proprietary.
Why we chose Bidens Pilosa anyway
Not because it beats bakuchiol in trials. It has never been tested that way.
We chose it for the formula it arrives in. Our Retinol Alternative Serum and Retinol Alternative Moisturiser use organic aloe juice as the base instead of water, are made to the COSMOS NATURAL standard and certified by ECOCERT Greenlife, at 99% natural origin. The full INCI list is on each product page, not in a PDF you have to ask for.
If fragrance is a problem for your skin, note that both of those contain Parfum. The Overnight Cream is our fragrance-free one, made for skin that reacts to almost everything.
And if you read all this and go buy a bakuchiol serum instead, fair enough. You would be deciding with better information than most people get.
Common questions
Is Bidens Pilosa a natural retinol?
No, and no plant makes retinol. The extract contains compounds that appear to interact with retinoid receptors in the lab. Much smaller claim.
Is bakuchiol stronger than Bidens Pilosa?
Nobody has put them head to head in people, so there is no honest answer. Bakuchiol has been compared with retinol in a human trial. Bidens Pilosa has not.
Will either one irritate my skin?
Both tend to be better tolerated than retinol, and with bakuchiol that was measured rather than assumed. But the active is rarely the culprit on its own. Fragrance, essential oils and preservatives do plenty of the work, so read the whole list.
How long before I see anything?
Twelve weeks. That is where the bakuchiol trial took its final measurement, and it is a fair point to judge anything in this category.
Can I use these during pregnancy?
Ask your doctor. We have no safety data for Bidens Pilosa in pregnancy or breastfeeding, and we are not going to tell you it is fine when we do not know.
Sources
- Dhaliwal S, Rybak I, Ellis SR, et al. Prospective, randomized, double-blind assessment of topical bakuchiol and retinol for facial photoageing. British Journal of Dermatology, 2019.
- Antiageing mechanisms of a standardized supercritical CO2 preparation of black jack (Bidens pilosa L.) in human fibroblasts and skin fragments. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2015.