By Curtis Alexander, Pharm.D.
America’s Natural Pharmacist
Summary: There is good evidence showing that applying a Vitamin C serum can help strengthen your skin and minimize wrinkles as well as protecting other nutrients like Vitamin E from oxidation. Vitamin C serums vary wildly in price. You may be able to save a great deal of money by making your own natural vitamin C serum.
Q: There is a huge difference in price between a lot of the vitamin C serums for the skin. Why is that? Is one really more effective than any of the others or am I being taken by marketing?
A: For the most part, you looking at marketing efforts and brand reputation. Which, frankly, isn’t worth the extra money.
Let’s take a look at some of the things to look out for with vitamin C skin and eye serums so you can make the best choice for your budget.
Vitamin C Does Benefit Your Skin
There’s nothing wrong with thinking you can use vitamin C on your skin to make your skin look better. Vitamin C has proven to benefit your skin in two main ways:
- Vitamin C helps synthesize (or make) collagen. Collagen is a protein in your skin that has structural properties. Essentially, making your skins stronger.
- Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant which is important by limiting the damage of free radicals.
The end result of these two actions is hopefully a reduction in wrinkle lines and improved skin structure and texture.
The Problem With Vitamin C Serums
While no one can deny the scientific benefits of vitamin C, I also can’t deny that a lot of the commercial vitamin C skin care products have their issues – one’s few consumers stop and think about.
Namely, vitamin C itself is pretty unstable. Meaning, manufacturers have to be very careful about how they prepare the vitamin C serums and it’s exposure to the air or other oxidizing agents.
In short, when vitamin C is in it’s dry powder form it’s stable. But, when it is mixed (compounded) you can start running into problems. And, many commercial vitamin C serums have already become oxidized by the time you by them off the shelf.
Are there any ways to tell?
First, you can look at the color. Often times vitamin C that has been oxidized will take on a yellow to orange tint. Of course, depending on what the manufacturer used as their mixing ingredients it may be impossible to tell. If they used a yellow or orange die, you’ll never know.
To further compound and confuse you, when vitamin C first starts to become oxidized there is no color. The yellow or orange tint I was talking about above is a result of late stage oxidation.
Another thing to look at is the concentration of the product you are thinking about buying. In short, I’d avoid anything that is less than 10% vitamin C. Normally, it takes this much anyways to produce much of a protective effect on your skin.
Another problem that I’ve found with vitamin C serums is the results patients actually get. Based on my unofficial snooping of reviews and feedback from women I’d say it’s around 50% satisfaction rate. Now, is this a result of poor product selection, unreliable use (i.e., they aren’t applying it regularly or in sufficient amounts)? I don’t really know. But, vitamin C skin care products – despite the science supporting their use – haven’t lived up to the billing.
My Take on Vitamin C Serum for Your Skin
I think that it’s worth a shot to look at a natural vitamin c serum for improving your skins structure and wrinkles. However, because of how unstable vitamin C is, I’m pretty leery of many of the commercial products. There’s frankly no way to ensure that you are getting a product that hasn’t started being oxidized in the bottle.
If you are going to buy a vitamin C eye or skin serum buy a product of at least 10% and buy one without any dyes in it to help you determine when it might be reaching late stage oxidation.
Your second option is to make your own vitamin C serum. There are all sorts of recipes online that I saw but one of the biggest issues I saw right off the bat was they were 10% serums, or weaker. The biggest advantage of making your own vitamin C serum is you can make it in very small batches and avoid some of the oxidation issues I talked about above. Oh, and it will likely save you quite a bit of money.
