Winter Wellness: What Does Vitamin C Do for Your Skin?

Winter is the perfect season to provide your body with some additional care. Taking a pill of ascorbic acid can be a great way to ensure you get enough vitamin C to stay strong through these cold, harsh days. However, vitamin C is not a benefit for your immune system only. It can also be the skincare hero you need. From boosting collagen to reducing dark circles, this ingredient is a favorite in many skincare routines. So, let’s find out what vitamin C does for your skin and how you can get the most out of it.

What Does Vitamin C Do for Your Skin?

Vitamin C has emerged as a popular component in skincare products. It’s added to creams, face and eye serums, masks, and patches. The ingredient has become popular thanks to its beneficial properties. Vitamin C stimulates collagen production and improves skin tone. It also protects the skin from free radicals. These unstable molecules, with an unpaired electron, steal electrons from other molecules and trigger oxidation. Eventually, this process accelerates skin aging.

Moreover, the ingredient also reduces pigmentation spots and dark circles.

But perhaps one of its greatest advantages of vitamin C is its high safety profile, though with a few exceptions. But let’s take it step by step.

Forms of Vitamin C to Look For

Ascorbic acid, often called L-ascorbic acid, is the most commonly seen form of vitamin C in skincare. The reason is quite simple—it’s well-researched. But despite all the useful properties, it’s not very stable on its own, meaning that the ingredient tends to lose its effectiveness over time. To help preserve its potency, products containing ascorbic acid are formulated with a pH lower than 3.5. This low pH also helps vitamin C absorb better into the skin, making it more effective.

Two other common forms of vitamin C in skincare are ascorbyl palmitate and magnesium ascorbyl phosphate. These forms are more stable than ascorbic acid but are not so powerful.

Magnesium ascorbyl phosphate offers antioxidant and moisturizing effects, helps reduce water loss, and boosts collagen production. Similarly, ascorbyl palmitate provides the same effects but has shown slight comedogenic potential in some studies. It has a rating of 2 on a scale where 0 is non-comedogenic and 5 is highly comedogenic. By the way, you can also check our guide to comedogenic ingredients. 

Last but not least here is 3-o-Ethyl-L-ascorbic acid. It penetrates the skin more effectively than other ascorbic acid derivatives due to its lipophilic nature (the ability to dissolve in fats, oils, and lipids). It also offers whitening and antioxidant benefits. All that makes 3-o-Ethyl-L-ascorbic acid a good ally in anti-aging.

What Else Impacts the Efficiency of Vitamin C

Besides the form of vitamin C, there are two more major factors that influence its effectiveness in skincare products.

The first is concentration. It should be above 8% for noticeable results, with most products ranging between 10% and 20%. According to one of the research reviews, concentrations exceeding 20% may lead to minor skin irritation.

It may come as a surprise, but packaging is also important. Exposure to light, heat, and air can reduce the potency of vitamin C. That’s why many manufacturers use dark packaging and recommend keeping products in cool, dark places.

To enhance the benefits of vitamin C, many brands also combine it with other powerful ingredients such as plant extracts with antioxidant properties, vitamin E, hyaluronic acid, amino acids, peptides, ferulic acid, zinc, and more. You can also add sunscreen into your skincare routine, as it works together with vitamin C to protect your skin from harmful UV rays.

When to Apply Vitamin C

Do it once or twice a day. After cleansing your skin, apply the product first, followed by a moisturizer.

What Ingredients to Avoid While Using Vitamin C Product

As we’ve already mentioned, vitamin C is generally safe for topical use. However, in high concentrations, it can cause skin irritation or allergic reactions. So, it’s always a good idea to perform a patch test before using something you haven’t applied before. It’s really simple, just follow these steps:

1. Choose a small, hidden area of skin, such as your forearm.
2. Apply a bit of a product to that spot.
3. Wait 24 hours.

If there are no side effects, it’s safe to use the product. However, if anything goes wrong, stop using it straight away.

Some studies suggest that vitamin C shouldn’t be used alongside retinol, alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), or beta hydroxy acids (BHAs). However, there are many vitamin C products out there with these acids in their formula. The thing is, when combined in a single product, they are formulated at safe and effective concentrations.

Using them in separate products at the same time may lead to skin irritation due to potentially high concentrations in both products. To avoid this, it’s best to apply them at different times of the day. You can use products containing retinol or acids in the evening so that vitamin C products can be used in the morning. 

If you don’t want to check the product’s formula all the time, you can use the OnSkin app. It’ll check the effect of ingredients and tell you whether they are safe or not for your skin. All you’ll have to do is just to take a picture of the product or its barcode.

When to Expect the Result 

It typically takes two or three months. Like most active ingredients, Vitamin C doesn’t provide immediate visible effects.

While Vitamin C is safe for daily use, it’s a good idea to occasionally switch the form or concentration, but avoid doing so too frequently.