Most retinol in skincare products today is synthetic, not extracted from animals. The retinol molecule used in serums and creams is built in a lab from simple chemical building blocks, producing a compound identical to what’s found in nature. That said, retinol does exist naturally in animal tissues, and the full picture is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.
Where Retinol Exists in Nature
Retinol is the active, ready-to-use form of vitamin A, and in the natural world it’s found almost exclusively in animal sources. The richest source by far is liver: a single 68-gram slice of cooked beef liver contains about 6,410 micrograms of retinol, more than double the recommended daily upper limit. Cod liver oil, egg yolks, butter, and whole milk are also significant sources. Plants don’t contain retinol directly. Instead, they provide carotenoids (like beta-carotene in carrots and sweet potatoes), which your body must convert into retinol through several steps, and that conversion is relatively inefficient.
Before synthetic production existed, all commercial vitamin A came from animal sources, primarily fish liver oil. That changed in 1948, when the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche produced the first kilograms of synthetic vitamin A, eliminating the need for animal extraction entirely.
How Synthetic Retinol Is Made
Modern retinol production relies on chemistry, not animals. Manufacturers currently use two main routes to build the retinol molecule from scratch. One starts with acetone and acetylene, both simple industrial chemicals. The other uses citral, a compound originally sourced from lemongrass oil, though it’s now also produced synthetically. Citral gets converted into a key intermediate called beta-ionone, which is then built up step by step into the full retinol molecule through a series of chemical reactions.
The end product is chemically identical to the retinol found in beef liver or cod liver oil. Your skin can’t tell the difference between synthetic retinol and the naturally occurring version because they share the exact same molecular structure. This is why the vast majority of cosmetic and supplement manufacturers use synthetic retinol: it’s cheaper, more consistent in purity, and doesn’t require sourcing animal tissues.
Why a Retinol Product Still Might Not Be Vegan
Even though the retinol itself is almost certainly synthetic, the other ingredients in a serum or cream can be animal-derived. Glycerin, one of the most common moisturizing ingredients in skincare, can come from animal fat (tallow) or from plant oils. Stearic acid and oleic acid, used as emulsifiers and texture agents, have the same dual sourcing problem. Panthenol, a B-vitamin derivative common in skincare, is mostly synthetic today but can still be animal-based in some formulations.
Processing aids add another layer of complexity. Even plant-based or biotech-derived ingredients sometimes require animal-based solvents or substrates during manufacturing. These processing aids may not appear on the ingredient label, making it difficult to verify a product’s vegan status from the packaging alone.
If avoiding animal-derived ingredients matters to you, look beyond the retinol itself and check the full ingredient list for glycerin, stearic acid, lanolin, squalane (which can come from shark liver or olives), and collagen. Contacting the manufacturer directly is often the most reliable way to confirm sourcing.
What “Cruelty-Free” and “Vegan” Labels Actually Mean
The FDA does not legally define “cruelty-free” or “not tested on animals” for cosmetics. Companies can use these phrases freely, and some base their claims on the fact that their ingredients aren’t currently being tested on animals, even if those same raw materials were tested on animals years ago when first introduced. There’s no single government-regulated vegan certification for skincare either. Third-party organizations like The Vegan Society and PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies program offer their own certification logos, each with different standards for what qualifies.
Plant-Based Alternatives to Retinol
For those who want to avoid retinol altogether, bakuchiol is the most studied plant-based option. It’s extracted from the seeds of the Psoralea corylifolia plant and works through a different chemical pathway than retinol, yet triggers similar gene expression changes in skin cells. A randomized, double-blind clinical trial found that bakuchiol and retinol produced comparable improvements in signs of photoaging, including fine lines and pigmentation. Bakuchiol also tends to cause less irritation, which makes it appealing for sensitive skin types regardless of the vegan question.
Bakuchiol is not retinol, though. It doesn’t convert into vitamin A in the body and doesn’t carry the same decades of research behind it. It’s better understood as a functional alternative that happens to produce overlapping results in the specific context of skin aging.
The Bottom Line on Sourcing
The retinol in your serum is almost certainly built from synthetic chemicals in a lab, not extracted from animal tissue. That’s been the industry standard for over 75 years. But “synthetic retinol” doesn’t automatically make a product vegan or cruelty-free, because the surrounding formula can still contain animal-derived ingredients like tallow-based glycerin or stearic acid. If your concern is strictly about the retinol molecule itself, it’s not coming from animals. If your concern is the entire product, you’ll need to dig deeper than the front label.