The best niacinamide serums for men

Why this category is easy to rank

Most skincare actives arrive as adjectives. Niacinamide arrives as a number on the front of the bottle, usually with the zinc alongside it, and every serum here publishes both.

That makes the ranking almost mechanical - and shifts the real question from which one to how much do you need, which is the section below.

What this page ranks on

1. Published concentration. Both the niacinamide and the zinc, in a number, from the brand.
2. A published ingredient list. Full, in label order, on the brand's own site.
3. Fragrance status. On a face that is shaved every day, fragrance is the first thing to eliminate.
4. Volume for the money. A serum used twice a day is a consumable, and the per-milliliter figure is the one that matters.

Published figures

The pick: The Ordinary Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%

Thirty milliliters, both actives published in the product name, and a full ingredient list with no fragrance on it. The Ordinary also publishes the conflict most brands leave out - do not use it with direct vitamin C - and publishes a patch-test instruction alongside it.

At this price it is close to a free experiment. If niacinamide suits your skin you will know within a month for the cost of a sandwich; if it flushes you, you have lost nothing.

The honest cons. There is no explicit fragrance-free claim - only an ingredient list without fragrance on it, which is not quite the same statement. No country of manufacture is published. Ten per cent is enough to flush skin that is new to the active. And The Ordinary publishes a warning to use it only on unbroken skin, which on a face shaved this morning is worth reading twice.

The strongest published: Naturium 12%

Thirty milliliters at a published 12 per cent niacinamide and 2 per cent zinc PCA, explicitly labeled fragrance-free, with published directions and a published dose - one to two pea-sized drops, morning and night.

It is the most niacinamide you can buy with the number printed on it, and the brand is unusually careful about the rest of the label: the list is published, the fragrance-free claim is explicit, and it still recommends a patch test even though it describes the product as appropriate for sensitive skin.

The honest cons. Twelve per cent is past the point where more helps, and the higher the percentage the more likely a flush. It sits between the other two on price without a published advantage other than concentration. No country of manufacture is published.

The fragrance-free label: Paula's Choice Booster

Twenty milliliters at a published 10 per cent niacinamide with 2 per cent ascorbyl glucoside published alongside it, explicitly labeled fragrance-free, and designed as a booster - it can be mixed into a moisturizer rather than used as its own step.

The honest cons. Twenty milliliters is the smallest bottle here and by some distance the most expensive per milliliter. The brand's own product page does not serve an ingredient list at all - the list above comes from its retailers, which for a brand built on ingredient transparency is an odd gap. And no frequency is published in the directions.

What niacinamide will not do

It is the most over-promised active on a drugstore shelf, so it is worth being clear about the edges of it:

• It will not fix razor bumps. Those are hairs re-entering skin, and the fix is technique plus a salicylic acid.
• It will not shrink a pore. Pore size is largely structural. Clearing the contents makes a pore look smaller, which is what you are actually buying.
• It will not replace sunscreen for the uneven tone most men are treating. UV is what caused it and UV will keep causing it.
• It will not work faster at a higher percentage. That is the whole finding of this page.

How to tell whether it is working

Niacinamide is a slow, unglamorous active. It does not resurface anything overnight and there is no tingle to tell you it is doing something, which is why people abandon it early.

• Give it eight to twelve weeks. Anything you notice in the first fortnight is hydration from the base rather than the active.
• Judge it on oil and texture, not brightness. Less shine through the afternoon and smaller-looking pores are the realistic wins. Even tone comes slowly, if at all.
• Change one thing at a time. Starting a serum, a new cleanser and a sunscreen in the same week tells you nothing about any of them.
• Stop if you flush. Warmth and redness after application is the most common reaction to a high percentage, and it does not always settle with persistence. Drop to a lower concentration or to a moisturizer that carries niacinamide further down its list.

And patch test first, on the inside of a forearm, which The Ordinary publishes as an instruction rather than a suggestion.

Do you need a serum at all?

Plenty of men do not. Niacinamide is already in a lot of well-formulated moisturizers and cleansers, including the CeraVe PM at the bottom of these picks, and a routine of cleanser, moisturizer and sunscreen does more for a shaved face than any single active.

Buy a serum when you have a named complaint - visible oil through the day, or uneven tone you want to work on - and want the concentration to be deliberate rather than incidental. The core routine is three products, and this is a fourth with a job.

If you are choosing between actives rather than between bottles, the retinol comparison is the page that sets out which problem each one actually addresses.