Dr. Brad talks about his favourite skin aging devices at 13:30.
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Isnāt Tegaderm usually a hydrocolloid/hydrogel, rather than dry gauze? Either way, itās meant to keep a moist wound healing environment to prevent scarring. (People also use them after tattoos, for example). Iām not sure it would improve delivery of topicals.
They might have inserted the gauze. The glossy plastic-like part surrounding the gauze completely locked out any chance of fluid (blood) from escaping.
I was actually a little worried the glossy sticky part would suffocate my skin.
It took me like 5 to 10 minutes to remove it. I kept trying to put the boundary over a fingernail pull it up, but it was so stuck-on it was like they had applied superglue.
Addendum: In fact, it looked like this:
https://www.cvs.com/shop/nexcare-tegaderm-pad-sterile-adhesive-pads-prodid-338552
Except, in my case the pad was smaller and square-shaped, not a long rectangle.
ā¦
As far as whether it would make topicals work better, occlusives at least are claimed to do this. As I said, I would guess this works better than that. Maybe 2x is a bit unrealistic, though.
Google search recommends not to use Tegaderm + pad for certain topicals like retinol. I fed in, āusing tegaderm with pad to increase delivery of retinolā and it said:
Do not use an occlusive dressing like a Tegaderm with a pad to increase the delivery of retinol. Applying an occlusive layer over powerful active ingredients like retinol can significantly intensify their effects, which will almost certainly lead to severe skin irritation, redness, burning, peeling, or even blistering.
Occlusion therapy works by creating a barrier that dramatically increases the absorption of topical treatments, sometimes by as much as 10 times. While this method is used under strict medical supervision for certain conditions (like psoriasis with specific medications), it is not safe for use with potent, everyday skincare ingredients like retinol without professional guidance. The increased penetration can damage your skin barrier and cause a painful reaction called retinoid dermatitis.
Though, itās sometimes hard to tell how seriously to take Google searchās responses like this, because typing in even the slightest deviation from approved medical advice generates responses like that. Google has it tuned to make it sound like youāre absolutely going to die of deviate even just an inch from approved medical advice ā and āIām going to call the police if you do use Tegaderm like thatā.
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Sure, but I also donāt see much sense using occlusion therapy for something like retinoids. They already pass through the skin very well. You can get them in high strengths (0.1% tretinoin) which are super effective and lots of people already canāt tolerate them. And more is also not necessarily better. Itās quite right that daily 0.1% will cause irritation in a lot of people. If you actually 10x the dose, itās not going to make you look younger!
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I asked GPT-5-thinking to analyze:
The commenterās core pointāmore isnāt better with retinoids, and occlusion usually backfires for facial useāis solid. The absolutism about dosing is the only real miss: benefits donāt go to zero with higher doses, but returns flatten while irritation climbs, so smarter strategy = lowest effective strength + consistent, non-irritating use.
Some of those require a prescription,like tretinoin I think. I know that adapalene you can get over-the-counter.
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