You may have heard chatter about vitamin C, commonly called ascorbic acid, being an effective and natural remedy for improving skin tone, reducing wrinkles, and eliminating skin discolorations. But you might be wondering: are these skin care claims valid?
In this article, we’ll cover the benefits of vitamin C, the types of skin conditions it can help improve, and the products you can incorporate into your facial care regimen today.
Vitamin C Improves Skin: True or False
Vitamin C is an excellent antioxidant for promoting healthy skin. It helps to reduce inflammation, irregular pigmentation and encourages collagen production. These qualities translate to a brighter, tighter complexion.
You may ask yourself: how does vitamin C work its magic on improving skin quality? By interfering with pigment production, ascorbic acid helps to reduce inflammation. Furthermore, since it promotes collagen production,which can thicken the dermis. That helps fill in pesky fine lines, giving you a more youthful appearance.
As an antioxidant, vitamin C protects your cells from free radicals from UV exposure. By doing so, vitamin C may reduce your chance of cancer.
If you’re in the store looking for a vitamin C serum, don’t be alarmed if you see the words L ascorbic acid or Linoleic acid. These are other terms for vitamin c, so you’ll receive the same incredible benefits as serums with a vitamin C label.
Vitamin C is crucial for health, but the body doesn’t produce this vitamin. Therefore, it’s essential to supplement your body internally and externally. You can do so internally by consuming vitamin C-rich foods like oranges, peppers, strawberries, or pure vitamin C powders and supplements. For external vitamin C health, you can apply facial oil with vitamin C and other vitamin C-based serums.
How Vitamin C Treats Skin Conditions
There are numerous skin conditions that vitamin C treats. Using a face serum that contains vitamin C is ideal because it helps to soften hyperpigmentation and dark spots, gives your skin a more even tone, and ensures that your skin has a healthier, more brilliant appearance.
We’ll talk about topical products you can use to take advantage of Vitamin C skin performance shortly. We’ll also cover other supplements that support vitamin C’s skin benefits since ferulic acid, essential fatty acids, and other oils combine well to strengthen vitamin C’s impact. But first, let’s explore in detail the different skin issues that vitamin C can treat.
Dull and Uneven Skin Tone
Hyperpigmentation is the name for discolored skin, which affects your skin’s only pigment—melanin. There are a few ways that hyperpigmentation occurs on the skin. Dark spots, also called liver spots, are often a result of sun damage. Dull and uneven skin tones can also result from acne-prone skin.
Vitamin C is responsible for how frequently our skin exfoliates itself. Yes, your skin naturally exfoliates. However, a more rapid exfoliation is beneficial because it’ll help to lighten darker pigmentation quicker.
The other way that vitamin C counteracts dull and uneven skin tones is by using tyrosinase inhibition to prevent melanin formation. It may sound complicated, but the concept is simple—those unwelcomed dark spots you have are from an uneven congregation of melanin pigment. Vitamin C reduces the amount of melanin your body produces by blocking the tyrosinase enzyme, which creates hyperpigmentation.
Vitamin C serums are an effective way to help your skin reduce its hyperpigmentation.
Slow Skin Healing Rate
Have you ever noticed your skin having a slower healing time than other people? If so, a lack of vitamin C might be the issue. The impact of vitamin C deficiencies on skin quality isn’t a new concept; scurvy is a condition that sailors used to be prone to since they went for long periods without fruit and vegetables rich in natural vitamin C.
In severe cases, symptoms of a vitamin C deficiency include swollen gums, redness around scars, black welts on the skin, and, of course, wounds taking a long time to heal.
Interestingly enough, a person from scurvy can fully recover simply by adding vitamin C to their diet. When this happens, collagen has the opportunity to rebuild in the skin, offering increased healing times, a more glowing complexion, and reduction of wrinkles.
Scurvy isn’t the only skin condition that vitamin C treats. It’s effective at healing scars quicker than people who don’t consume vitamin C and use vitamin C topicals. Not only that, but it also helps to reduce the appearance of scars compared to if you didn’t use vitamin C.
Rapid Aging
A lack of vitamin C can result in increased aging. We all know the effects that the sun can have on fading paint and changing wood’s color. While it might feel fantastic in the moment to get a nice tan, excessive time spent in the sun can cause your skin to look older than your age.
You can counteract this unwanted side effect by using facial oil with vitamin C and supplementing your diet with more vitamin C-rich foods. The reason? UV light causes oxidation, and vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that fights these free radicals floating in your body.
Trust us; you don’t want free radicals hanging out around your skin. As they bump into one another, they damage your skin and take up energy. You can help counteract this negative impact by using a Vitamin C face serum and applying sunscreen daily.
Fine Lines & Wrinkles
We’ve already established that your skin is continually turning over thanks to natural exfoliation and that vitamin C benefits skin by speeding up this exfoliation process. A rapid turnover of skin supports the reduction of fine lines and wrinkles, but vitamin C takes these benefits even further.
Vitamin C promotes collagen production, which is the primary support for your skin and helps to give it a firm tone. Collagen works closely with elastin, which allows the skin to move and remain plump and flexible.
If your body is lacking vitamin C, collagen will deteriorate, collapsing the flexibility benefits of elastin. As such, fine lines and wrinkles begin to form. By upping your use and intake of vitamin C, you’ll reduce and prevent fine lines and wrinkles, along with improving your skin tone.
The vitamin C in your skincare will stabilize existing collagen, stimulate collagen gene expression, and activate new collagen growth. These are a lot of fancy words to describe what matters to you most: your skin will begin to look younger and more radiant.
Inflamed Skin
Stress doesn’t just take a toll on your mind—your skin feels its effect too. It may come as no surprise that stress can increase the effects of aging, but this part might be new news to you: skin’s reaction to stress via inflammation.
No doubt there are obvious signs of skin inflammation such as bruising, sunburn, and acne. You also might notice that your face looks puffy in the morning, or you have dark circles under your eyes, which is usually a result of stress from sleep deprivation. Alternatively, alcohol and sugar consumption can result in inflamed skin cells.
Inflammation isn’t all bad—it can protect your body from bacteria and viruses. However, outside of these circumstances, inflammation is bad because it’s like your body is attacking itself.
As you might have guessed, vitamin C can come to your inflammation rescue. It works as an anti-inflammatory by interrupting biological signals that cause inflammation, thereby preventing them from occurring.
Serums with vitamin C are effective at treating skin inflammation provoked by acne, rosacea, and stress from UV exposure, among many others.
Acne
Acne vulgaris is the fancy term for those pesky pimples that frequent your face. According to PubMed Central, around 50% of adolescents and up to 30% of adults experience acne in North America.
Your skin has—or should have—a large concentration of vitamin C in its epidermis (the part of your skin visible to the eye). Acne causes inflammation of the epidermis, which is a result of environmental stressors.
Vitamin C can help reduce or eliminate acne’s severity by serving as an antioxidant to protect your skin from free radical damage. Its healing properties via collagen production also mean that it can help decrease the presence of acne scars and damage over time.
Vitamin C Skin Treatment Solutions
With so much talk about vitamin C, you might be thinking, how can I get some, and how do I use it? Rest easy—we’ve got you covered here in this section.
Vitamin C serums are an excellent addition to your daily facial care routine. You can purchase vitamin C in the form of serum or oil. If you’re using a vitamin C serum, you should apply that to your face before any other product (and after washing your face, of course).
If you’re using a facial oil with vitamin C, you’ll want to apply any serum you use first, follow it with the facial oil, and then apply moisturizer and sunscreen after.
When applying vitamin C products to your skin, keep in mind that vitamin C’s effectiveness decreases when it’s exposed to light right after you use it. Therefore, to maximize your serum or oil’s benefit, you should allow time before heading outside.
At admiremyskin.com, we’ve specially formulated our Admire Glow Drops so that you can take advantage of the many benefits of topical vitamin C. Our vitamin C oil stands out from other products on the market because it’s clinically proven to provide results.
We’ll talk about the benefits of Admire Glow Drops in more detail next, along with sharing some other products and ingredients that can help improve your skin. We’ll only showcase the most natural, healthy options on the market; you may have heard about concerns with Retin A safety, retinol, and other chemical products that could be harsh on your skin.
Admire Glow Drops
Embrace the benefits of vitamin C with our Admire Glow Drops. The oil-based product contains a careful balance of natural active ingredients, including liposomal vitamin C, vitamin E, argan oil, rosehip oil, and sea buckthorn oil.
The result of this vitamin and oil combination is a more youthful-looking, hydrated, and “dewy” you. The dewy appearance is a beautiful result of Admire Glow Drops, as it gives you a healthy radiance that builds from the inside out, thanks to vitamin C’s benefits.
Our USA-made vitamin C oil is cruelty-free and doesn’t contain any parabens. It’s also vegan and free of gluten and fragrances.
Admire Glow Drops is easy to incorporate as part of your daily routine. Simply apply two to three drops to clean skin. Make sure to apply it after serum and before moisturizer and sunscreen to achieve the best effect. Using your fingertips, lightly spread the oil on your face by patting, making sure not to get too close to your eyes.
One of our favorite ways to use Admire Glow Drops is by mixing the oil droplets with foundation. That’ll help give your face the final touches to a smooth and dewy finish.
Admire Glow Drops is compatible with all skin textures and types, from dry skin to oily skin. Thanks to its non-comedogenic formula, you won’t have to worry about breakouts or pore-clogging.
Rosehip Oil
Rosehip oil is a natural source of vitamin C. Farmers harvest this part of the rose plant by cutting the round part of the plant that’s located just beneath its petals. Rosehip includes the rose’s seeds, which farmers turn into oil.
Although rosehip seed oil is an excellent supplement for vitamin C, it’s not ideal to use this product on its own to maximize its impact. The reason being is that a lot of vitamin C becomes lost during the seed drying process. Therefore, your best bet is to find a facial product that contains rosehip oil in addition to other vitamin C-rich ingredients.
Jojoba Oil
Like vitamin C, jojoba oil contains antioxidants, thanks to its rich supply of vitamin E. Therefore, it combines well with vitamin C to stimulate collagen synthesis, improve wound healing, and treat acne. It’s also effective at reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Because it works so well with vitamin C, finding a facial product that contains jojoba oil is an excellent option.
Argan Oil
The Moroccan tree argan produces kernels that transform into a rich oil that’s excellent for your skin. Like jojoba oil, argan oil contains vitamin E. Therefore, it’s another great product to combine with vitamin C skincare products.
Argan oil is particularly effective at combating inflammatory skin conditions such as psoriasis and rosacea. Thanks to antibacterial and fungicidal properties, it offers great healing for skin infections.
People with an oily skin complexion will be glad to know that argan oil doesn’t produce an oily sheen. Therefore, it’s an excellent product to use in vitamin C facial oils, as we’ve done with Admire Glow Drops.
Turmeric Face Oil
Turmeric is a good source of vitamin C, but its skin-healthy benefits don’t end there. It also has anti-allergic and anti-parasitic qualities. It does wonders with drying out acne and giving your face a youthful-looking glow when combined with oil. Furthermore, it can clear up dandruff and help to prevent hair loss.
When using it for facial care, turmeric is most common in essential oil form. However, this can be too strong for sensitive skin, so you should mix turmeric with an oil, such as jojoba or argan.
Hyaluronic Acid
Hyaluronic acid is responsible for keeping your skin hydrated and giving it a plump-looking complexion. As with collagen, as you age, the amount of naturally occurring hyaluronic acid in your body decreases. For this reason, supplementing your skincare routine with a product that contains hyaluronic acid can be an excellent option. In addition to hyaluronic acid, ferulic acid is another excellent supplement to vitamin C. Ferulic acid complements antioxidants by offering excellent photoprotection.
