By: Suki Kramer
As you know, there’s always a new ingredient being introduced to the market…& right now we’re going to talk about the new antioxidants! Well…OK – they’re not exactly new, but current advances in science are helping good old vitamin C work far better topically & you should know what to look for when choosing skin care products that tout vitamin C as the key ingredient!
Of course you already know that vitamin C is one of the most powerful antioxidants in skin care & an important factor in collagen production. Nothing new. Anti-aging products have been featuring it for years. Bad news is that the topical ester in primitive ascorbic acid form, once exposed to air or light, or simply over time in a formulation, oxidizes, looses electrons & the product becomes unstable & useless.
Scientists in Japan have developed an oil-soluble version of vitamin C ester called tetrahexyldecyl asorbate (BV-OSC). Unlike some the other forms of vitamin C, which are solid at room temperature & harder to emulsify during the formulation period, Tetrahexyldecyl asorbate is a liquid. Along with reducing the browning & oxidization that occurs in the bottle, oil-soluble esters (like ascorbyl palmitate, which has been around for awhile as well) penetrate fat cells instead of water cells. Although the fatty bonds in the tetrahexyldecyl asorbate keep the antioxidant stable in the bottle, they break down faster on the skin. The components are non-acidic too, so they do not irritate the skin! Vitamin C (ascorbyl acid) Glucoside is also a relatively new form of the vitamin & although in powder form, this vitamin has shown remarkable results at the clinical level for everything from wrinkles to brightening the skin! Now, ascorbic acid in liposome or polypeptide form is the only ascorbic acid I would ever let near my skin! Why? Because a liposome or peptide makes the vitamin, the acid, safe, trapped inside a water cell. A formulator can then use a far higher percentage of the vitamin than you ever could if it were on its own. It is then very stable within the product, when exposed to the environment & on your skin! The liposome delivery system is also what really forces the vitamin to penetrate the skin cells.
Because of the stability factor of these new classes of vitamin C, we get far more benefits. We’ll have to wait and see how many more companies keep up with the times & update their formulations to apply all these new vitamin C’s.
I’ll be sure update YOU on new advances science is making in the skin care industry!
know your beauty®,
Suki
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