Vitamin C is the most popular vitamin and is widely used for boosting the immune system, protecting against cardiovascular disease, eye problems, and many others. One of its greatest, yet less discussed benefits is its anti-aging and skin-caring abilities. Skin serums will provide your face with just the right amount of vitamin C, specifically targeting the signs of aging, UV damage, and wrinkles. To help you figure out the cosmetics and serums mess, we have picked several high-quality, effective and luxurious vitamin C serums. Before suggesting certain products, we should first tell you a few essential facts about vitamin C. Your skin is full of it, but with age and due to lifestyle factors, we naturally lose this nutrient. It has a major role in collagen production, so it’s essential for maintaining skin’s elasticity and natural softness. Vitamin C is also one of the most powerful antioxidants – it reduces the number of sunburned cells and reverses the age-related damage to skin.
This includes age spots, skin discoloration, or fine lines. Overall, vitamin C works on your skin like chemical peels and lasers, but it’s much safer, easy to use and low-cost. You may take it through food and supplements, but this won’t have direct results for your skin. To target aging skin, spots and wrinkles, you will need topical vitamin C. The good serum with this vitamin will eventually reduces the wrinkles, brighten the skin, even the skin tone and repair skin damage. The tricky part is that vitamin C deteriorates quickly when exposed to air and light, so your serum needs to be in an airtight and opaque package! Organic Vitamin C + E Serum This serum should be used every morning, prior to sun exposure – leave it a few minutes to absorb, and then apply moisturizer and sunscreen on top of it. Its formula contains one of the most stable forms of vitamin C, plus vitamin E for a super powerful anti-aging punch, ferulic and hyaluronic acid. It is relatively inexpensive and you can find it here for $22 only.
Intensive Vitamin C Serum for Rejuvenation This is one of the most effective anti-aging serums as it contains not only vitamin C, but also arginine, hyaluronic acid, Aloe Vera, and several plant extracts and oils. It helps restore collagen production, making the skin feel and look more youthful and firm. It reduces the fines lines, enhances the skin texture and tone, brightens the dull skin and prevents damage from sunlight and environmental pollution. The best thing is that it can be used by everyone, regardless of age. It is available online here for the price of $23.49. Vitamin C Serum + Derma Roller for Improving Skin Appearance You can use this serum by itself or along with the derma roller, which has titanium alloy needles and significantly improves the absorption of topical products. The kit comes with a free e-book tutorial and a video, explaining how to use the roller. But if you don’t watch the video, it’s quite simple – use the roller before the serum, or as a standalone treatment for various skin problems from wrinkles and fine lines, to acne and scars, to even cellulite and stretch marks on your body.
You can order it here for $35. Resurfacing Vitamin C + Hyaluronic Acid Serum The serum includes only natural and organic ingredients, including vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, ferulic acid, jojoba oil, MSM, essential amino acids, and antioxidants. It treats fine lines and wrinkles, discoloration and age spots, sagging, acne, scars, stretch marks, or simply dry, dull and uneven skin. All these serums are stronger and more concentrated than most topical products on the market, so you should use them only once a day and in some cases, you can apply them in the morning and in the evening, but consult with a doctor before that. While in many women, results can be expected in two to four weeks, others will need six weeks before noticing a visible change. However, you will probably start feeling the effect in the first days, while for optimal results you should wait five to six months – as with all cosmetics. Of course, vitamin C serums won’t do miracles, but they will really take a few years off your face.
And they are easy to use, and more importantly, safe, unlike most cosmetic procedures such as expensive chemical peel that will leave your face sore and red for weeks.Greeting to all you beautiful girls out there! This is my first contribution to IMBB and I truly hope that all of you enjoy reading it. Each one of us is beautiful inside and beautiful skin is achievable. A disciplined lifestyle, regular workout and drinking plenty of water is the secret to life long healthy and glowing skin. You only need the patience and determination to make it work for you. I have been blessed with a clean and healthy skin even though I was the darkest of my two very pretty sisters. But, on the whole I had no real complaint, which is until now. In the last six months, I got a taste of almost all kinds of skin issues like skin rashes, acne, blemishes, large pores, dark patches and uneven skin tone. My face turned into a battleground where the only one getting beaten was me! What did I do?
Well I guess the right question would be… What didn’t I do? Everything under the sun…. From Olay to Garnier to L’Oreal to The Body Shop. And makeup to hide their after effects! And I thought, well it was good while it lasted. But my search for that perfect magic potion continued. While going for a month long break, I packed all my so called magic bottles and decided to rely on the home made ubtans for a while. That’s when I read somewhere that I could make my own Vitamin C serum for practically no cost. For those of you who don’t know, Vitamin C, when applied topically, is an excellent anti- oxidant and helps in the production of collagen which gives you flawless skin and also keeps wrinkles at bay. Vitamin C and E, when used regularly, can help reduce the damage caused by the harmful UV rays. Now the tricky part, l-ascorbic acid (the scientific name for pure vitamin c) is not a very stable compound and oxidises very quickly when it comes in contact with air and sunlight.
So, in all probability, even before you buy your vitamin c product from the market shelf, it is good for nothing. Rather, it works the other way round by actually working as an oxidant, instead of working as an anti-oxidant. Now I have not even begun to discuss all the money you have spent on your precious product. One way to find if the product you are using is any good is to check for the colour. Yellow tint indicates oxidation. But since most brands add fragrance and colour to their product, this is not a very reliable method to check for oxidation. Also, for vitamin c to work for you there must be a minimum of 5% vitamin c in whatever formulation you are using. Most brands do not specify the percentage of vitamin c used in their formulations, so even if what you have purchased is fresh, you cannot be sure, if it will work for you. It may not be potent enough to be effective on your skin. Ever wondered why those high end, highly advertised products don’t work in spite of having all the right ingredients?
Simple answer: not potent enough. So we will mix something up at home, that is both fresh and potent. Yes, your very own vitamin C serum. We will make a very small batch which will last you not more than a week and it will be free of all fillers and unnecessary stuff. Remember to use it only at night first. Once your skin gets used to it, you could begin using it during the day as well but be sure to follow it up with a good sunscreen since vitamin c makes your skin photosensitive. I personally prefer to use it only at night. We will make our first batch with 5% potency. You could move it up to 10% once your skin has adapted. However, the maximum prescribed dosage is 20% so ensure that you never ever exceed this limit. Here is the list of all that we will need: Pure vitamin c powder (l-ascorbic acid) 1/4 tsp Distilled water (or rose water). Vitamin E gel capsule 1 capsule An empty glass bottle to store your serum (you could clean and use an old paediatric medicine bottle)
Being an Indian and living in Delhi, I know it is practically impossible to get pure vitamin c in powder form. Although there are some online stores that do supply this powder at a very reasonable price, I personally wanted to be sure that this actually works. So even though a lot of sites prescribe against it, I made my first batch using 2 vitamin c tablets (I used CELIN by Glaxo Smith Kline) instead of the 1/4 tsp crystallized powder. The logic I used was, if it is good to eat, then surely it won’t harm your skin. I now intend to order my supply of pure L-ascorbic acid powder and get the benefits of the serum without the fillers that may be there in the tablet. Step 1: Dissolve the vitamin c powder in the distilled water completely. Just drop the two tablets into the bottle and add distilled water to it. Shake the bottle until the tablets dissolve completely. This way no contamination will take place by multiple handling of products. Step 2: Add the glycerine to the mix obtained in step 1.
Step 3: Puncture and add the contents of 1 Vitamin E gel capsule. This will help keep your serum stable and add the benefits of vitamin E oil. Step 4: Store this concoction in a cool and dark place….and voila! There you have your very own vitamin c serum at 5% potency. Remember to use it within a week’s time and make a fresh batch once a week. Application: After cleansing your face, apply a small quantity of your Vitamin C serum at bed time. Follow it up with your favourite moisturiser. Leave it on overnight. A word of caution: Sensitive skin beauties may feel slight tingling sensation initially. If this happens, you may want to start using it on alternate nights for the first few weeks until your skin adapts to it. I am a living proof that this works. What all those big brands could not do in six months, this little magic potion delivered in two weeks. My skin is on its way to becoming totally clear. The acne has gone the marks and blemishes lighter to a great extent, the pores appear smaller and the skin looks radiant and healthy.