To start treatment, apply a pea-sized amount to the forehead and spread it evenly over your entire face. After it is established that you can tolerate the medication, the dose may be doubled by applying a pea-sized amount to each temple. In the morning, wash your face using a mild soap.

If you experience excessive irritation or discomfort, you should decrease the frequency with which you apply the cream to every other night or even every third night. Your doctor may recommend that you apply this medication every second day for the first three weeks of treatment to minimize side effects such as burning sensation and redness. After about 6 months to 1 year of treatment, your doctor may suggest that you reduce your applications of tretinoin to 2 or 3 times a week.

Take special care when treating wrinkles around the eyes and mouth to minimize contact with the eyes, lips, and mucus-producing areas. Avoid contact with the eyes, eyelids, angles of the nose, mouth, easily irritated areas, or other areas where treatment is not intended. Avoid areas of the skin where you have other problems such as eczema, severely inflamed skin or open lesions.

The skin of certain sensitive individuals, particularly those with fair complexions, may become excessively red, edematous, blistered or crusted when exposed to tretinoin cream. Pain, burning sensation, tenderness, irritation or pruritus have also been occasionally reported. If any of these effects occur, the medication should be discontinued until the integrity of the skin has been restored or the treatment schedule adjusted to the level the patient can tolerate. Temporary hyper- or hypopigmentation has been reported with repeated application of tretinoin. To date, all adverse clinical effects of tretinoin encountered have been reversible upon discontinuance of therapy. In many instances, reinstitution of therapy with tretinoin failed to produce the adverse effect previously experienced.