Vitamin C

Can vitamin C make you look younger? The benefits of vitamin C and its derivatives in skin care products has led to several studies, with results showing that vitamin C can help you achieve healthy-looking skin in two different ways.

Vitamin C is an antioxidant, along with Vitamins A and E, which means it has properties that combat free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules found in the environment, such as excessive exposure to sunlight, cigarette smoke, and pollutants in the environment that contribute to premature aging or hasten skin aging.

Before we discuss how vitamin C skin care works, it is best to have an overview of the skin's structure. Collagen, sometimes referred to as the "fountain of youth", is a protein found abundantly in the skin during our youth, but gradually decreases in production as age progresses. Vitamin C is the only known antioxidant that has been proven to stimulate the collagen synthesis. Your skin needs collagen to keep it supple and young looking.

With the benefits of vitamin C for your body, bringing this essential nutrient into your daily diet helps improve your health and make you feel and look better. The increased production of Vitamin C also helps minimize wrinkles and result to overall improved skin quality. To get your daily requirement of Vitamin C, you need to bone up on foods rich in this vitamin like citrus fruits, strawberries, cantaloupe, and kiwi. Vegetables high in Vitamin C such as spinach, cabbage, broccoli, and green peppers also help you get the boost you need.

It is important to consume a variety of these types of food or get a daily dose of ascorbic acid supplement since your body is unable to produce vitamin C by itself.

Vitamin C and Skin Care

Vitamin C does have all the benefits your body needs to stay healthy, but eating a bag of citrus fruits would not produce the results you desire for your skin. In order to achieve a vitamin C skin care program, you must find a way to combine a healthy diet rich in this nutrient and topical vitamin C skin products.

Be warned, though, that vitamin C reacts to the oxygen that could do harm than good on your skin. It is for this reason that many pharmaceutical companies are formulating vitamin C derivatives that resist oxidation, although you'd probably have to spend more on these products to see its benefits and not render the vitamin C skin care regimen useless.

Today, scientists were able to develop vitamin C derivatives, which is currently used in the market, including magnesium ascorbyl phosphate and ascorbyl palmitate that consist of a fragment of the ascorbic acid, ascorbyl, and other acid fragments such as palmitate and/or phosphate. When used together, research findings showed that these new vitamin C derivaties might work better since they are more stable compared to the older versions.

Additionally, some of these new derivatives, specifically the tetrasubstituted lipophilic ascorbates have been observed to provide a powerful boost to collagen synthesis. With these new compounds integrated into new vitamin C skin care products and their wide uses, evidences of their benefits will start accumulate.

Vitamin C increases your protection against the harmful UV rays, stimulates collagen production, and reduces the visibility of fine lines and pigmentation due to aging. Consult your dermatologist on what vitamin C skin care product is good to use to achieve the desired results for your skin. Hundreds of topical vitamin C skin care products should be available in your local beauty stores.

Be choosy when picking out a vitamin C skin care product. Always consult your doctor prior to using them to avoid the incidence of allergic reactions.