Introduction

Vitamin C or L-Ascorbic Acid is one of the most scientifically researched and tested of all skincare ingredients. Because it is the skin’s main water-soluble anti-oxidant vitamin, it plays a critical role in protecting the skin against UV radiation damage. As UV radiation damage to skin collagen is one of the main causes of skin aging, Vitamin C plays an important role in countering this skin aging process. However, it plays other important roles in protecting, repairing and promoting healthy looking skin^​1​.

“Normal skin contains high concentrations of vitamin C, which supports important and well-known functions, stimulating collagen synthesis and assisting in antioxidant protection against UV-induced photodamage.”^​2​

Benefits for Your Skin

The role of Vitamin C in our skin’s protection and health have been extensively reviewed in many reputable academic journals. It’s skincare benefits:

1. Skin Collagen Repair and Replacement

“Ascorbic acid (AA) is essential for collagen biosynthesis as a cofactor for prolyl and lysyl hydroxylase and as a stimulus for collagen gene expression.”^​3​

Vitamin C is known for its antioxidant potential and activity in the collagen biosynthetic pathway^​4​. Vitamin C is a necessary co-factor in formation of skin collagen^​3​ and without Vitamin C, skin collagen synthesis decreases. Because the synthesis of skin collagen is dependent on Vitamin C, increasing skin levels of Vitamin C increases collagen synthesis^​1​.

Age-related reduction and UV-induced degradation of skin collagen are the main causes of skin aging signs such as wrinkles and fine lines. Increased exposure to Vitamin C can ameliorate signs of skin aging.

2. UV Radiation and Ozone Anti-oxidant Protection

“The induction and regulation of endogenous antioxidant defense mechanisms may offer a good strategy for the treatment and prevention of aging and photoaging in human skin.”^​5​

Because Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant, it can neutralise and remove oxidants, such as those caused by environmental pollutants and UV radiation^​6​. Therefore it plays a central role in protecting the skin against the collagen damaging action of UV radiation and ozone induced free radicals. Vitamin C increases the skin’s resistance to both UVA and UVB radiation, thus protecting skin cells from UV radiation damage. Higher levels of Vitamin C in our skin gives our skin enhanced UV radiation protection in a similar manner to using sunscreens.

3. Enhanced Action of Vitamin C Combined with Vitamin E

As Vitamin E is our skin’s main oil soluble anti-oxidant, it helps protect skin lipids and proteins from environmental oxidative damage. Vitamin C regenerates Vitamin E after it completes it’s skin-protective, oxidative action^​7​. Because Vitamin C can regenerate Vitamin E, it greatly enhances the oxidative and protective capacity of the skin^​8​. Antioxidants do not work individually in the skin but work synergistically in an integrated and regulated way to protect against oxidative stress^​8​.

Because combined anti-oxidant treatments provides greater skin protection than single treatments, it is preferable to use skincare treatments containing anti-oxidant combinations^​8,9​. It has been shown that combinations of Vitamin C and Vitamin E in microemulsion formulations result in enhanced skin penetration of both vitamins^​10,11​.

4. Pigmentation Reduction

“Vitamin C derivatives, including the magnesium phosophate ascorbyl derivative, have been shown to decrease melanin synthesis.”^​2​

Over-production of skin melanin causes skin pigmentations such as melasma, dark spots and freckles because melanin is a natural skin darkening compound. The skin does this as a natural response to over-exposure to UV radiation and it acts to protect the skin from UV exposure. Vitamin C inhibits production of skin melanin, Vitamin C reduces skin pigmentations and discolourations and is a skin lightening ingredient^​1,6​.

5. Skin Repair and Healing

Vitamin C performs vital functions in supporting skin repair, wound healing and scar formation^​12​. By stimulating production of collagen and elastin through special messaging genes involved with cell survival and tissue remodelling, Vitamin C helps repair damaged skin and prevents scar formation.

6. Enhanced Skin Barrier Structure and Function

The Stratum Corneum is the thin outer layer of cells that protect the skin from attack by environmental factors. Vitamin C actions result in enhanced structure and organisation of this important layer. Vitamin C also plays a role in the differentiation and formation of the stratum corneum barrier^​2​. As this layer is the outer, visible skin layer, improving organisation and structure of this layer by Vitamin C results in improved skin’s tone and a healthy skin appearance^​2​.

7. Anti-inflammatory Action

Because Vitamin C has anti-inflammatory action^​2​ and it can be used by dermatologists to treat inflammatory conditions such as acne^​1​.

Discussion

Vitamin C is an important multi-functional skincare ingredient that plays a vital role is a number of antiaging and skin health processes^​2​. Because it is such an important ingredient with many scientifically proven skincare benefits, Vitamin C should be a necessary component of all antiaging and UV protecting skincare regimes.

However, there are serious challenges involved in delivering active Vitamin C past the stratum corneum to the skin layers in need to its benefits^​6,13​. L-Ascorbic acid is highly unstable in water formulation^​6​ and cannot penetrate the skin barrier at pH of less than 3.5, a very acidic pH^​13​. As a result of an inability to overcome these challenges, many skincare products containing Vitamin C cannot live up to their product promise and fail to deliver Vitamin C’s many benefits. The fact that Vitamin C concentration in the skin is around 0.06-0.006%^​2​ and many Vitamin C serums promote L-Ascorbic acid concentrations of 20% illustrate the difficulty of these serums face in penetrating the skin barrier with L-Ascorbic acid.

“The biggest challenge in the utilization of Vit C is to maintain the stability. Vit C is easily degraded in aqueous medium, at high pH, in the presence of oxygen and metal ions. This process is usually accompanied by a color change in the formulations.”^​6​

The Solution to Vitamin C Challenges

Our Vitamin C Serum and our C E Ferulic Serum use new generation, nano-formulation technology to overcome these challenges^​6​. Our nano-encapsulated Green Micelle™ formulations provide stable serums that can penetrate the skin to more effectively deliver Vitamin C skin benefits. Nano-encapsulation of active ingredients, Vitamin C and Vitamin E, provides both enhanced ingredient stability^​9​ and superior skin penetration of the biological actives^​6​. It has been shown that microemulsions simultaneously improve skin penetration of L-Ascorbic Acid^​14​ and oil soluble Vitamin E^​15​.

References