Yea, retin-A works very well for acne for me. Have used it since the 90's for that purpose. And yes, a small bit goes a long way...just a very small dab on the actual zit, no more. I hardly break-out these days, for a long time. If you have really bad acne/backne, i'd probably say go for Accutane....if it's just a small break-out here and there, from time to time, i'd go retin-a. I'll sometimes use alcohol prior to the retin-a.