Niacinamide: Better Evidence Than I Had Been Giving It, and Narrower Than the Marketing
Niacinamide has real trial evidence at 2% and 4%, including for sebum. It also has claims it does not support. This page corrects an error made elsewhere here.
Iris Vance writes as a researcher, not a dermatologist or licensed esthetician. Nothing here diagnoses or treats. How we work.
Niacinamide: Better Evidence Than I Had Been Giving It, and Narrower Than the Marketing
Evidence grade: Moderate. Reasoning at the end. The scale is in how we rate skincare evidence.
This page opens with a correction, because I got something wrong on two other pages of this site and this is the ingredient it was wrong about.
The correction
Across several articles I wrote that sebum output is hormonally driven and that nothing you apply changes production. The first half is supported. The second half was too absolute, and this ingredient is the counterexample.
DermNet, on topical nicotinamide: Nicotinamide also reduces facial sebum production. It cites a specific study: Results of a well-controlled clinical trial in Caucasian and Japanese women have shown that application of 2% nicotinamide moisturiser to the face for 4-6 weeks reduces sebum production with significant differences in facial shine and oiliness.
A well-controlled trial, a stated concentration, a stated duration, and a measured outcome. That is better evidence than I credited when I wrote, on the page about a 10% niacinamide serum, that it "cannot change sebum production." That sentence was wrong and has been corrected there, with a note.
The accurate version: sebum production is largely hormonally driven, most topicals do not change it, and this specific ingredient has trial evidence that it does at 2%.
Niacinamide vs nicotinamide
Same molecule, two names. DermNet: Nicotinamide, also known as niacinamide or nicotinic acid amide, is the water-soluble, active form of vitamin B3.
Worth knowing because the clinical literature files it under nicotinamide while cosmetic labels almost always say niacinamide, so searching the wrong one returns the marketing rather than the studies. It is also distinct from nicotinic acid, its precursor, which is the one associated with flushing.
What does niacinamide do, according to the trials
The clinical reference's own summary of the state of play is the most useful sentence on this page: nicotinamide has been increasingly studied for many different indications in the field of dermatology, but more research is needed to clarify its value.
That is a clinical reference saying, about the ingredient with the broadest claims on the shelf, that its value is not yet clear. Hold that alongside the specific findings, which are real:
Acne. DermNet describes a head-to-head: In a controlled clinical trial, 4% nicotinamide gel was found to be as effective as the topical antibiotic 1% clindamycin gel in the treatment of acne vulgaris in 76 patients with moderate acne. Seventy-six people is a modest trial, and matching a topical antibiotic is a meaningful comparator.
Sebum. The 2% trial above.
Complexion. Here the wording turns softer: it is reported to improve complexion, by improving the pigmentation, blotchiness and redness of ageing skin. Reported to, rather than shown to.
Which study shows niacinamide reduces sebum production?
One trial, and DermNet names it. The niacinamide sebum production study appears in that page's reference list as Draelos ZD, Matsubara A, Zhuang J, et al. The effect of 2% niacinamide on facial sebum production. J Cosmet Laser Ther 2006.
Four things can be read off that line before anyone opens the paper.
One study, from 2006. The claim that niacinamide reduces oil traces through this reference list to a single trial rather than to a replicated body of work.
Two percent is in the title. That is the shortest available answer to whether a 10% serum delivers what was measured. The study named its concentration, and it is not the one on the bottle.
The journal is a cosmetic dermatology one, as its title states. That is not grounds for dismissing the result, and it does place the finding in cosmetic science rather than in the clinical trial literature sitting behind retinoids.
I have not read it. PubMed serves a JavaScript shell to automated requests, so everything reported here about the trial's design and result comes from DermNet's description of it, quoted above, rather than from the paper.
The complexion findings have named sources in the same list: Bissett DL, Oblong JB, Berge CA. Niacinamide: A B vitamin that improves aging facial skin appearance. Dermatol Surg 2005 and Hakozaki T; Minwalla L; Zhuang J, et al. The effect of niacinamide on reducing cutaneous pigmentation and suppression of melanosome transfer. Br J Dermatol 2002.
The acne trial is the one I could not trace. DermNet describes the 4% versus clindamycin head-to-head in its body text, but on that page, checked on 30 August 2026, the reference list runs to eleven entries and none of them is that trial. Every other finding quoted on this page has a citation attached. That one does not.
Being exact about what that does and does not mean: the trial may exist and may be perfectly sound, and its absence from one bibliography is not evidence against it. What I can say is that the page describing it does not point at it, so a reader cannot get from here, or from there, to the paper. The acne result rests on a clinical reference's summary alone, which makes it the least traceable of the three findings even though the described result is the most striking.
What it does not do
Change pore size. DermNet lists topical nicotinamide among treatments for enlarged pores, in a list it introduces by stating that Treatments that focus on preventing and shrinking large pores are not very effective.
That combination is worth holding precisely: evidence for reducing sebum, no useful evidence for narrowing the opening. If the target is the brown mark rather than the oil, azelaic acid is the ingredient documented for that, with its own caution attached, and vitamin C forms compared covers the other active usually named alongside it, where the form on the label decides how much evidence applies. Less oil can make pores look less obvious without the pore changing, which is the distinction large pores on nose is built around.
Niacinamide percentage, and why 10% is not obviously better
The trials DermNet cites used 2% for sebum and 4% for acne. The most widely sold serum in this category is 10%, and I could not find evidence that higher concentrations perform better on these endpoints.
This is where the label problem bites. Cosmetic products are not required to state concentration at all, as how to read a skincare ingredient list covers, so most niacinamide products do not tell you where they sit relative to the tested 2% and 4%. The ones that do publish a number, like The Ordinary's serum, are publishing a number that sits above the tested range rather than within it.
More is not documented to be better here. It is simply the number that fits on a bottle.
DermNet also gives a practical note for people finding it drying: If a twice-daily application causes excessive drying of the skin, one may reduce to once a day, or every other day. On skin that is already very dry, an ingredient documented to reduce sebum is the wrong direction to begin with.
The oral form is a different subject
Nicotinamide is also taken by mouth, and that literature is genuinely separate. DermNet notes it may reduce actinic keratoses and the risk of skin cancer, particularly squamous cell carcinoma.
That is not a reason to start taking it. Oral use for skin cancer risk sits with a dermatologist who knows your history, and this site does not give dosing for anything taken internally. The reason to mention it is that the skin-cancer evidence is sometimes borrowed to sell serums, and a pill studied for one outcome says nothing about a serum aimed at another.
Safety
The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's published findings table records niacinamide with a conclusion of safe, from an assessment published in 2005, in its table of ingredient findings. CIR is industry-established and industry-funded, as disclosed each time it is used here.
The grade, and what was searched
Moderate. Human trials exist with stated concentrations, durations and comparators, including one against an active control. They are small, and the clinical reference that reports them says more research is needed to clarify the ingredient's value. That is the textbook description of this site's middle grade rather than its top one.
What was searched, on the date in the header: the published trial literature by way of the DermNet review, the CIR findings table, and the AAD's public material. CIR and DermNet are quoted above. The AAD material I could search returned only incidental mentions rather than a dedicated page on this ingredient.
What I did not check: whether the 2% sebum finding holds beyond 4 to 6 weeks, and whether the 4% acne result has been replicated independently. Both would move the grade if answered. The second question is harder than it looks, because the acne trial is not traceable from the reference list of the page that describes it, as set out above.
FAQ
What does niacinamide do? The documented findings are: reduced facial sebum production at 2% over 4 to 6 weeks, acne clearance at 4% comparable to a topical antibiotic in one 76-person trial, and improved barrier function in rosacea patients in at least two studies. Complexion benefits are described in softer language.
Which study shows niacinamide reduces sebum production? Draelos ZD, Matsubara A, Zhuang J, et al., The effect of 2% niacinamide on facial sebum production, J Cosmet Laser Ther 2006, named in DermNet's reference list. One trial, at 2%, in a cosmetic dermatology journal. This page reports it from DermNet's summary rather than from the paper itself.
Does niacinamide reduce oil? Yes, on the evidence of a well-controlled trial at 2% over 4 to 6 weeks, which measured reduced sebum production and differences in facial shine and oiliness.
Niacinamide or nicotinamide, what is the difference? None. They are two names for the same water-soluble active form of vitamin B3. Clinical sources tend to use nicotinamide, cosmetic labels tend to use niacinamide.
What percentage of niacinamide should I look for? The trials cited here used 2% and 4%. I found no evidence that 10% outperforms them, and most cosmetic labels do not disclose the concentration at all.
Is niacinamide good for acne? One controlled trial found 4% gel as effective as 1% clindamycin gel in 76 people with moderate acne. That is a real result and a small one, and it does not put niacinamide in the first-line position that retinoids hold.
Does niacinamide shrink pores? No. It appears in DermNet's list of pore treatments, and DermNet describes that whole category as not very effective. Reduced oil can make pores less noticeable without changing them.
Niacinamide turned out to be the ingredient this site had been quietly underselling while the market oversells it. The trials are small, specific, and mostly at concentrations lower than the bottles advertise, which is an unusual shape for a beauty ingredient: the evidence points at 2%, and the marketing points at 10%.