Benefits of Vitamin C

What comes to mind when I say vitamin C?

I’m not talking about oranges and lemons. You might have seen that many skincare products contain vitamin c in them. What does vitamin c do?

What if I told you that vitamin c has long been used as a brightening ingredient that can help to reduce redness, hydrate the skin, and reduce under-eye bags. It’s definitely worth knowing how to incorporate vitamin c in your skincare routine.

What are the benefits of vitamin c for the skin? What should I use with vitamin c? From selecting the best vitamin c serum to applying it correctly, you can make the most of this wonderful ingredient.

Wait until you hear this.

I’ve researched everything you need to know about vitamin c plus why you should be using products containing vitamin c for your skin and other health benefits of using vitamin c, without getting bad reactions.

Here’s a tip- Vitamin C can start breaking down due to exposure to light or air, so make sure you keep it in an airtight bottle that doesn’t let sunlight through. Bear this in mind when buying a vitamin c serum, as the packaging can make it last a lot longer!

Scroll down for the best part!

What is vitamin c?

Vitamin c also known as ascorbic acid, interestingly isn’t actually produced in your body naturally. Your body gets vitamin c through your diet or supplements you might take, from fruits and vegetables, for example oranges. Although your body doesn’t produce it, it’s crucial in many body functions such as enzyme production and tissue repair.

Vitamin c is an antioxidant meaning it helps to protect your skin from free radicals and harmful UV rays. It also boosts collagen production, reduces wrinkles or fine lines, and contributes towards glowing, youthful skin. You’re not going to want to miss out on this one!

 

What are the benefits of vitamin c?

So you want to try out vitamin c in your skincare, but what does it do? No matter your age or skintype, there are a few reasons why vitamin c is a good idea for your skin. Check out a couple of vitamin c benefits below.

Hydrates skin

One of the derivatives of vitamin c called magnesium ascorbyl phosphate has a hydrating effect on the skin. Vitamin c prevents transepidermal water loss through the skin, meaning you lose less moisture throughout the day, keeping your skin happy and hydrated for longer. Check out the ingredient list for this type of vitamin c!

Brightening effect

As we said before, vitamin c helps to brighten your skin and make it glow. Vitamin c can help to reduce redness and smooth out your skin, provide an even skin tone and brighten up your face. It can also fade hyperpigmentation and age-related fine lines or dark spots, to give a brighter, glowing appearance.

Promotes collagen production

Vitamin c is great for boosting collagen production. As you know, with time our collagen levels in the body decrease, which can lead to wrinkles and fine lines, as well as worn or haggard-looking skin. When you take a dose of vitamin c, you’re helping the skin to renew itself and produce more of the collagen protein for healthy skin.

Fades hyperpigmentation

Hyperpigmentation is a pesky problem, including anything from age spots, melasma, and sunspots or acne scarring. Whether you’ve dealt with acne in the past, or have spots where there is too much melasma, vitamin c can help to speed up the healing process to fade and brighten that area. Vitamin c also impedes melanin production to prevent dark spots and create an even toned complexion.

Reduce redness

Suffer from redness or irritation? Since vitamin c is anti-inflammatory, it can reduce redness and create a more even tone. Try using vitamin c serum, you will notice a difference in your skin tone for sure, with less redness and more radiance!

Reduce under eye bags

Not only is vitamin c good at getting rid of redness, but it can also reduce the discoloration under the eyes that come no matter how much sleep you seem to get. By evening out your skin tone and dark eye bags, you will see fewer dark circles. Vitamin c is also great for plumping and hydrating the skin, so you can reduce puffy eyes to get a wide-awake look.

Protects against harmful sun

Our skin is exposed daily to harmful UV rays and free radicals that damage our skin cells on a deeper level. Since vitamin c is an antioxidant, they target these free radicals so your skin doesn’t have to deal with them, making them harmless for your skin. In a few years’ time, it will make a big difference to how your skin looks!

Soothe sunburns and heals wounds

One of the benefits of taking vitamin c on your health is that it accelerates cell turnover. What that means for you is that damaged cells are quickly replaced with new ones. This makes vitamin c excellent for wound healing and sunburn.

Whether you’re taking in vitamin c rich foods or using a vitamin c serum or capsules, your skin will change for the better. But these aren’t the only benefits of taking doses of vitamin c. When you have good levels of vitamin c daily, you’ll notice many benefits for your body as well.

Health benefits of vitamin c

Your skin isn’t the only one that benefits when you take vitamin c daily. What are the health benefits of vitamin c? Scroll down to find out some great reasons to take vitamin c for your health too.

Reduce the risk of chronic diseases

As you know, vitamin c is an antioxidant. Antioxidants are molecules that boost the immune system and protect from sun damage. Since they protect our body from free radicals, it has shown a lot of promise in preventing chronic diseases caused by them such as heart disease, as well as equipping your body to deal with them. Your risk of developing heart disease is much less when you look after the immune system.

Prevent iron deficiency

If you struggle with anaemia or low levels of iron, vitamin c can help. Vitamin c works by assisting in the absorption of iron much more easily, so your body can use it. When you consume vitamin c rich foods or supplements, you help to increase blood iron levels. When you take in iron, combine it with vitamin c to help your body get higher absorption of iron to get healthy.

Manage high blood pressure

Many people deal with high blood pressure, and more seriously, it can put you at risk of developing heart disease. That’s where vitamin c comes in, as it can lower blood pressure by relaxing blood vessels. Although you should not rely on vitamin c as a treatment on its own to prevent heart disease, studies have shown it has some good effects in reducing blood pressure. It will reduce the pressure of your blood significantly if you take it daily.

Boost immunity

This is one of the biggest reasons people take vitamin c supplements. Vitamin c promotes the production of white blood cells, which fight infection to boost the immune system. It also helps these white blood cells to function better by protecting them from harmful toxins in the environment. As vitamin c is an antioxidant, so it is transported in the skin where it is used to strengthen the skin’s barrier against the environment. Vitamin c has shown some promise in helping fight against diseases such as covid 19 as well.

Improves memory

As we age, our memory is not as good, and our thinking capabilities can suffer too. When you take vitamin c it can help reduce the risk of mental illness such as dementia. Studies show that inflammation and oxidative stress near the brain can be a cause of poor memory and thinking ability, so an antioxidant vitamin c can be beneficial in preventing this from happening.

Do you need any more reasons to give vitamin c a try? Prevention is key. Whether you want to improve your skin or your overall health, vitamin c may have heaps of benefits for the body. Often some health conditions are worsened by vitamin c deficiency. But, how can we use vitamin c in our daily routine?

Tablet or serum? Using vitamin c in your routine

When preparing your dietary menu for the week, eating a vitamin c rich food diet is definitely going to help prevent many health conditions. Aside from food and diet or fruits and vegetables, you can get higher levels of vitamin c from other ways such as a supplement or as a serum. Which one is best?

Studies have shown that when you take vitamin c as a serum to apply it topically on your skin, it is much more potent than vitamin c from your diet or a supplement. If you want to use vitamin c to improve your skin, id recommend getting a serum so you can apply it directly onto your skin, where it can be transported.

Taking vitamins and minerals as a daily vitamin supplement can be extremely useful as well, especially when we don’t always manage to get the recommended dose of vitamin c levels just from our diet. Although citrus fruits are rich in antioxidant properties, a glass of orange juice isn’t going to get you the recommended dietary allowance to lower risk.

To get vitamin c levels on point, doctors recommend getting 500 milligrams of vitamin c every day. Of course, some people prefer to take less, for example 90 mg , but the truth is that taking high doses of vitamin c is going to produce better results.

If you have a sensitive stomach, go for vitamin c with an acid buffer treatment so it doesn’t harm you. As for supplements, vitamin c can help with prevention and to heal from the inside and has many cardiovascular benefits. As a serum, there are varying concentrations but bear in mind that you don’t necessarily need a high doses of vitamin c in serum for better results.

How to include vitamin c in your skincare routine

If you plan on using a vitamin c serum in your skincare routine, then you’re on the right track to beautiful glowing skin. But how to include this in your skincare routine?

Apply vitamin c in the morning-Vitamin c works best in the morning, use a serum rather than cream or toner as this is more effective for your skin.

After cleansing, but before moisturizing– After cleansing your face and using a toner, you can go ahead and use a vitamin c serum. After that don’t forget to use moisturizer and spf!

Be patient– Don’t be surprised if it seems to not work, results take time. You should be able to see a difference in 6 to 8 weeks of using vitamin c daily.

Combine with other products– To get better results, you can combine vitamin c with some other suitable ingredients such as vitamin e and ferulic acid, vitamin b, and hyaluronic acid. These work really well together.

Don’t mix with reintol or niacinamide– A word of caution, do not use vitamin c with retinol or niacinamide as they have different ph levels. You can use vitamin c in the morning and then retinol in the evening for example.

Use dark packaging and check the expiry date– You always need to check if your skin is ok with vitamins but don’t forget to check the product itself. It should be stored in an airtight container with no light. If you smell something strong it could be a sign it’s gone off.

 

Final thoughts

So why haven’t you been using vitamin c before?! Now that you know all about it, you can start reaping the benefits of this wonderful ingredient right away.

Don’t forget you can get vitamin c as a serum for skincare, but also as a supplement to take care of yourself from the inside out.

Have you tried vitamin c before?