Vitamin C is often regarded as a wrinkle fighter or an anti-aging agent. The main objective of ‘
Vitamin C skin care’, in scientific terms, is to increase the synthesis of collagen (a structural protein that is found in skin). The additional benefit of ‘
Vitamin C skin care’ is related to its capability of countering free radicals which cause damage to the skin.
Vitamin C skin care, however, faces a major
challenge today. This is related to the oxidation tendency of
Vitamin C skin care products. On coming in contact with any oxidising agent (e.g. air), the
Vitamin C in the
Vitamin C skin care products, gets oxidised; thus making the
Vitamin C skin care product useless (in fact counter-effective). The oxidised
Vitamin C imparts a yellowish-brown colour to the
Vitamin C skin care product. This is something that you need to check before buying a
Vitamin C skin care product. Even after you buy a
Vitamin C skin care product, you need to store it properly and keep checking that it’s still good to use (i.e. it hasn’t attained a yellowish-brown texture).
The manufacturers of
Vitamin C skin care products have tried to deal with this (oxidation) problem in multiple ways (and research on
Vitamin C skin care products is on the top of their list). One such method of retaining effectiveness of
Vitamin C skin care products for a long term is to keep a high concentration (say 10%) of
Vitamin C. However, this makes the
Vitamin C skin care products even more expensive. The
Vitamin C skin care products are already pretty inexpensive and making them even more expensive will throw the product manufacturers out of business. The other way is to use
Vitamin C derivatives (like ascorbyl palmitate and magnesium ascorbyl phosphate). These are not only more stable but also inexpensive. Even though the derivatives based products are not as effective as the
Vitamin C skin care products, their stability against oxidation is a very desirable feature that makes them very attractive. Moreover, these are known to be less irritating too.
Talking of effectiveness of
Vitamin C skin care products, it’s important to mention that not everyone responds to
Vitamin C treatments. So it’s not a magic potion in any way. If you don’t see a noticeable difference in your skin, it might be because of your skin not responding to
Vitamin C treatment (and the
Vitamin C skin care products might not be at fault, at all).
As more research goes on, one can only keep our fingers crossed and wait for a complete solution to the
challenges faced by ‘
Vitamin C skin care’ today.