Vitamin C is a very popular ingredient in the cosmeceutical industry. As an antioxidant, it has great immune system benefits internally, but antioxidants like vitamin C have benefits externally as well.
Why is Vitamin C so great?
1. When applied topically, vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid plays a big role in skin elasticity and strength because it produces collagen. It’s such a great ingredient because we need help keeping our collagen production levels high. Over time our collagen production decrease because:
Natural aging. As we age, our collagen production slows down. It’s just a part of getting older.
UV exposure. When it comes to preventing wrinkles and signs of aging, the sun is basically the devil. UV rays penetrate deep into the skin and age it through oxidative stress. This breaks down collagen which is the main cause for wrinkles and folds in the skin to occur.
2. It helps brighten the skin and fade dark spots (hyperpigmentation). These dark spots can be melasma a.k.a. sunspots, or marks left over from acne.
3. It helps prevent free radical damage from the sun and other external factors like pollution. Vitamin C acts as a barrier between you and your skin and absorbs some of the free radicals. Wearing sunscreen together with a vitamin C serum will help boost protection.
So what do you need to be careful about when buying a vitamin C serum?
1. Vitamin C is great for many reasons but it is incredibly unstable in solutions containing water. One way to stabilize these formulations is with the addition of Vitamin E and Ferulic Acid. The combination of the two actually increases photoprotection! In this study, the photo-protectiveness was doubled with vitamin E and ferulic acid.
“This combination of pure natural low molecular weight antioxidants provides meaningful synergistic protection against oxidative stress in skin and should be useful for protection against photoaging and skin cancer.”
2. For the formulation to be effective and to be absorbed by the skin, the ph of the product also needs to be 3.5 or lower (Pinnell et al, 2001). Some websites will indicate what the ph of the product is or a lot of people test it and post it online, so it’s easy to find out.
So why not just eat a bunch of oranges?
Vitamin C is water-soluble so any extra vitamin C that your body doesn’t need will just be excreted. It needs to be applied topically to get the above benefits. So the best way to get brighter, tighter, protected skin is to just slap some on!
Here are some of my recommendations.
What’s your favorite Vitamin C serum?
Sources
L. Chen, JY Hu & SQ Wang, The role of antioxidants in photoprotection: a critical review (full text), J Am Acad Dermatol 2012, 67, 1013-1024 (DOI).
Ferulic Acid Stabilizes a Solution of Vitamins C and E and Doubles its Photoprotection of Skin
Lin, Fu-Hsiung et al.
Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Volume 125, Issue 4, 826 - 832.
Humbert et al., Topical ascorbic acid on photoaged skin. Clinical, topographical and ultrastructural evaluation: double-blind study vs. placebo, Exp. Dermatol. 2003, 12, 237–244.
Pinnell, S.R., Yang, H.S., Omar, M. et al. Topical L-ascorbic acid: Percutaneous absorption studies. Dermatol Surg. 2001; 27: 137–142.
P. K. Farris, Topical vitamin C: a useful agent for treating photoaging and other dermatologic conditions, Dermatol. Surg. 2005, 31, 814-818.
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