Vitamin c or L-ascorbic acid is very potent antioxidant which helps skin to regenerate and repair. I know it is very popular ingredient, many of you have had amazing results with it but there are some like me who haven’t really had what we expected. While it can do miracles for normal skin it can create many problems for people with sensitive skin. I remember using my first vitamin c product,It was a total setback for me. I was left with red blotchy skin. My skin was inflamed, it had burned. I just didn’t know what to do, It took a few days for the redness to go but the damage stayed there for a while. My cheeks had hyper-pigmentation for almost a year. it did take me a while to kind of find out what works and what not around vitamin c regimen. Certain factors play a part in using vitamin c most efficiently, so here’s your dependable guide to use Vitamin C :
Concentration: First thing first, you want to be ascertain of how much of vitamin c concentration will be good for you. If you are a beginner and still at young age, you want to start with low concentration. Vitmain C is effective from 5% to 20%. Your best bet is to start at 10%. Many products commonly use 10% in the formulation and then work your way up. You also want to start low if you have sensitive skin. One can definitely start with higher concentration if having mature skin. Mature skin is usually tolerant to higher concentrations and need higher concentration for the product to work
Layering: Vitamin C is usually fine to go with other skincare ingredient except a few; you want to avoid any exfoliating products the same time you are using vitamin c namely;
- AHAs/BHA’s: while AHAs and BHAs can be game changer for the skin, you may not reap full benefits if used with vitamin c as it will cause the skin irritation.
- Retinol: Retinol or Retinoids are used to treat skin texture and ageing skin. Retinoids have several benefits for the skin but key point to consider is Vitamin C is acidic and has low pH while Retinoids products have higher pH. so if you are trying to use both the products together all it will do is reducing the pH of retinoids and increasing the pH of Vitamin C which will make it ineffective. If you anyway want to use these together, you must wait at least half an hour between the application of the products. You must use Vitamin C first and then layer it with retinol. As vitamin c is water soluble chemical and usually formulated with water base. You would always want to layer water based products first and then move to more occlusive product.
- Benzoyl peroxide: Benzoyl peroxide can reduce the effectiveness of Vitamin C, benzoyl peroxide causes vitamin c to oxidize thus making it less potent so you always want to avoid such combination.
Formulation: L-ascorbic acid is the most commonly used derivative of Vitamin C in skincare products. L-ascorbic acid is the most effective form of Vitamin C however also most unstable form of the Vitamin C and can get oxidized when exposed to light. L-ascorbic turn into dehydro ascorbic acid which gives it yellow colour, indicating that the products has become ineffective and has gone rancid. It has to be maintained at the pH of as low as 3.5 for it be effective. So you may want to look for more stable formulations like the one that have stabilizing ingredients. Vitamin C can be kept from oxidizing and losing it potency by using vitamin e and ferulic acid along with the ingredient or you may use the products that have more stable forms of Vitamin C such as:
Magnesium ascorbyl phosphate
Ascorbyl 6 palmitate
Disodium isostearyl 2-0 L-ascorbyl phosphate (VCP-IS-Na)
Ascorbic acid sulfate
Tetraisopalmitoyl ascorbic acid
These above derivative are more stable, less irritating to the skin and also hydrating but will deliver results slower and less effectively than L-ascorbic acid but you would want to use these forms if you have sensitive skin or you are a beginner.
Sunscreen: Best time usually suggested to use vitamin c is the day time as it inhibits the growth of free radicals on the skin. But since vitamin c is highly oxidative, It can actually be of no benefit if not is protected by the layer of sunscreen. So it is really important to use a sunscreen; a good sunscreen to protect skin from uva and uvb rays.
