Vitamin C Skin Care - The Challenge

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 tendency of Vitamin C skin care products to oxidise (i.e. combine with oxygen).
On coming in contact with any oxidising agent (e.g. air), the Vitamin C in the Vitamin C skin care product is oxidised; which renders the Vitamin C skin care product useless (counter-effective even).
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 quite costly and making them even more expensive would just put the product manufacturers out of business.

The other solution 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. Also, they are less likely to irritate the skin.

Regarding the effectiveness of Vitamin C skin care products, it’s important to note that not everyone responds to Vitamin C treatments. So Vitamin C is no magic wand. If you don’t see a noticeable difference in your skin, it may simply 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 research continues, we wait and hope for more complete solutions to the current challenges faced by ‘Vitamin C skin care’.