There are loads of skincare, SPF, retinol and vitamin C. According to many experts, if you are armed with these three ingredients and use them correctly, then your are pretty much guaranteed brighter, smooother and healthier look skin – there’s no wonder vitamin C is the the most searched skincare ingredients ever, according to the analysed by Cult Beauty.
How vitamin C, AKA the most googled ingredient of all time, that can transform your skin? Vitamin isn’t a new ingredient, it’s been known for yonks. Of course, we might be aware of its super beneficial for our skin, but many of us tend to be guilty of leaving it behind in favour of a new ingredient. We are lucky, as there’s an influx of high-tech serums, oils, moisturisers and even supplements that have fine-turned this notoriously unstable ingredient (that usually degrades when it comes in to contact with air, light and heat, as well as not playing ball with retinol and AHAs) that been created with even more powerful, reliable and user-friendly solutions.
Vitamin C is an antioxidant, this means that it’s a potent agent that is great for frighting oxidative damage, that doesn’t just happen on the skin’s surface. Our bodies tend to suffer from oxidative damage when our immune system activates to fight off pathogens, which vitamin C plays a vital role in recovery from illnesses, by supporting the development of our warrior white blood cells and fighting inflammation that can damage the tissue and organs.
What does vitamin C do for your skin?
When it comes to skincare, vitamin C has its benefits including the ability to even out skin tone, tackle the pigmentation, brighten the complexion, all while gently diminishing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and reducing the rate of the natural loss of collagen – this is essential for supporting the revival of your skin’s elasticity. With all these benefits, research has shown that this ingredient can shield your skin from the visible impacts of environmental stresses including free; radicals that induce tissue damage. Vitamin C is a great thing and can come in many different forms, so it’s able to be used depending to skin type, as well as personal needs an requirements.
Different forms of vitamin C in skincare:
- Mask: This can be applied to irriated skin to soothe and help reduce swelling.
- Cleanser: It’s most useful when being combined with other vitamin C products as it not the most potent, but it’s still suiteable for different skin types.
- Vitamin C serums: The most potent vitamin C’s formulas come in face serums, which can be included in your skincare routine everyday – whether that in the mornings or evenings.
- Eye cream: The form of cream targets the under eye area and is very effective, plus vitamin C can help to reduce the appearance of dark circles and wrinkles and fine lines.
- Creams/Moisturiers: The multi-use moistuisers helps to promotes collagen production and should a skincare staple that will also save you time too.
- Non-topical (supplements): Beauty supplements with vitamin C can be beneficial to skin, but it does also work from the inside out. The can come in capsule form or insoluble tablets.
When and how should you be using vitamin C within your skincare routine?
Unlike what is usually said about AHA’s and BHA’s or retinol, vitamin C isn’t necessarily vulnerbale to sun expose, which means that you can add it into your skincare routine every moring and layer it underneath a good suncream – either a 30 SPF or 50 SPF.
Nevertheless, it does depend on the form of vitamin C, as well as the skin cosmetician. Spoken on Glamour Magazine, skincare entrepreneur Ole Henriken’s rule of thumb is to “implement it by layering according to thickness (from the lightest product – serum and toners, to the thickest – moisturisers, including eye cream and then applied the SPF).
Where can you get vitamin C from?
L-Ascorbic acid (better known as vitmain C) is essential for humans as we can’t synthesise it by ourselves, that why we need to implement vitamin C in our daily diet through eating vegetables & fruit that contains high concentraction of vitamin C. But saying that, our skin is the last organ that we address with the digestion process, so that’s were the need for topical vitamin C formulations that works efficiently within the skin’s metabolism – this means whilst out bodies can get vitamin C from the foods that we eat, our skin still need to be topped up by using vitamin C based skincare.
What do you need to look out for:
- Type: It doesn’t matter whether you choose to use a topical serum, as a multi-use moisturisr or something more targeted like; eye cream, but make sure you choose the right product for your skin type and needs.
- Form: There are many different types of vitamin C formuales. Majority of them are potent forms for oily or normal skin – scorbic acid – where as if you have dry or sensitive skin you will something like more gentle – magnesium ascorbyl phosphate – a water-soluble form of vitamin C.
- Concentration: When you first start out using vitamin C, it best to start out with a lower concentration like 10% to 15% and then work you way up the potencies.
- pH: The absorption of vitamin C can totally depend on it pH level. Normal skin – you should use a low of pH approx 3.5. Sensitive skin – you should use a formula with pH of between 5 to 6.
- Storage: It really doesn’t matter if you opt for a water-based vitamin C or a without water based vitamin C, but what will differ is how you store it. Water-based vitamin C will be much more unstable and light-sensitive (it typically comes in a opaque or amber coloured bottle), where as anhydrous (without water) will be much more stable, even in sunlight you should make sure that your vitamin C is stabilised and kept airtight in a dark, cool space.
Vitamin C can be taken both orally or within skincare products, so I’ve rounded up a few vitamin C products, from the most gentle to the most potent. Something for everyone needs ad skin type, so stock up you beauty cabient!
