There is a way of thinking about actives that feels like diligence and functions like sabotage. You have bought four good products. Each one is evidence-backed. So you use all four, every night, on the theory that the benefits add up.
They do not reliably add up. Two things get in the way, and one of them is chemistry.
Actives are formulated to a pH. L-ascorbic acid needs an acidic environment, somewhere below 3.5, to penetrate at all. Niacinamide is comfortable near neutral. Retinoids convert to their active form through enzymes that work in a different range again. Layer these wet, one straight onto the other, and you are not delivering four actives, you are delivering a blended pH at which some fraction of them cannot do their job. The classic vitamin C and niacinamide objection is overstated in the way the internet states it, but the underlying principle is sound: formulations are tuned environments, and stacking them mixes the environments.
The larger problem is cumulative barrier load. A retinoid accelerates turnover. An acid dissolves the bonds between corneocytes. An exfoliating scrub removes the surface mechanically. Each of these is fine on its own and each takes something from the barrier. Run them together on the same night and the arithmetic is not four benefits, it is one compromised barrier, and a compromised barrier absorbs unevenly, reacts to things it used to tolerate, and delivers exactly the flaking and stinging that convinces people actives do not suit them.
The fix is scheduling, and it costs nothing.
Give each active its own night. Retinoid two or three evenings a week. Exfoliation on a different two. Gentler renewal actives on the nights in between, and at least one night that is nothing but cleanse and repair, because recovery is a step and not an absence of one.
You will use less product and get more from it, which is an outcome the category is structurally uninterested in telling you about.
The Anti-Aging Ritual is built around alternation rather than accumulation. Galliformes, with its retinoid and bakuchiol, three evenings a week. Antigone, with plant stem cell technology and a multi-peptide complex, on the alternate evenings. Erithacus closing every night to rebuild the barrier behind whichever active just ran.
Same four products. Same eight weeks. The only variable is the calendar, and it is the one that decides whether any of it works.