Welcome to Ingredient 101 with Volition Beauty! Where we break down some of your favorite skincare ingredients, give you the facts and figures, and answer commonly asked questions.
Today, let's talk Vitamin C. First off, why does everyone talk so much about Vitamin C? Let's explore the 7 benefits that make it an essential ingredient in skincare.
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1) It’s anti-aging: Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that protects from environmental stressors.
2) It helps visibly firm your appearance: Vitamin C can help keep skin looking tight and toned.
3) It reduces the appearance of dark spots and age spots on the skin’s surface.
4) It reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
5) It helps with oily skin
6) It helps alleviate clogged pores
7) It addresses redness
The one key thing with Vitamin C is that when it is exposed to UV light it degrades and often yellows the skincare formula. Vitamin C occurs in numerous natural ingredients such as strawberries, kakadu plums, papayas, carrots, sea buckthorn, rosehip and celery – all of which are found in Volition Beauty skincare. However, the majority of Vitamin C in skincare is synthetically derived in order to make the ingredient more stable and therefore more effective in formulas that have sat on shelves or in warehouses for months before use.
Here’s a list of some of the INCI names for synthetic vitamin C that you might find in skincare formulas: ascorbic acid, L-ascorbic acid, magnesium ascorbyl phosphate, ascorbyl palmitate, ascorbic acid polypeptide, ascorbyl glucosamine, ascorbyl glucoside, ester-C, sodium ascorbyl palmitate, and sodium ascorbyl phosphate.
Vitamin C is not oil-soluble and therefore the best formulas for Vitamin C concentration (up to 20%) are water-based formulas and emulsions.
The absorption of Vitamin C into the skin has been proven to be most efficient when the skincare formula has a pH of 3.5. This is lower than the pH of skin, and means that the formula is slightly more acidic than skin’s pH. These acidic formulas can be slightly irritating to skin so it is highly recommended to wear SPF during the day after applying any skincare with high concentrations of Vitamin C.
It goes without saying too that leave-on formulas have a distinctly better chance of allowing the Vitamin C to absorb into skin than rinse-off formulas allow. It is recommended to reapply leave-on Vitamin C skincare formulas every 8 hours to keep the ingredient absorption optimized.
Here are some excellent natural sources of Vitamin C in Volition Beauty formulas:
- Lemon & Orange extracts in the ACV Resurfacing Peel Pads
- Kakadu Plum in the Strawberry-C Brightening Serum
- Papaya & Carrot in the Daily Vitamin Glow Booster
- Sea Buckthorn in the Hibiscus Unspottable Correcting Oil
- Celery in the Celery Green Cream
