Studies show that the use of Vitamin C on the skin can significantly reduce signs of aging.  In fact, Dr. Oz recently touted the antioxidant vitamin as being able to take 10 years or more off your face.  What are the drawbacks and concerns with using vitamin C on the skin though?

While vitamin C is water soluble, meaning it does not build up in the body and can be taken in high quantities without worry, there are some concerns with vitamin C in aqueous solutions.  The problem lies in its propensity to oxidize.  In fact, traditional Ascorbic Acid can oxidize in a very short time, often leaving skin care products, particularly serums, oxidized and unusable half way through the bottle.  The addition of ferulic acid, which comes from the cell walls of plants, has been shown to add to the stability of ascorbic acid some, but oxidation still remains a major concern.  Because of this, many companies making vitamin C serums and other topical skin care products with vitamin C recommend keeping products in the fridge.  This can obviously be hard for people who travel often and do not have a fridge in their hotel room.

Here at Mad Hippie we have gotten around this oxidation problem by using a much more stable form of vitamin C called sodium ascorbic phosphate.  This form is basically the same as traditional vitamin C but with a salt molecule attached.  The salt molecule dramatically improves the stability of vitamin C, while also helping the vital antioxidant penetrate the skin.

The skin has a thin lipid barrier on the outside that acts as a protective barrier, while also keeping essential skin nutrients and moisture locked in.  Ascorbic acid, being an acid, has a difficult time penetrating the skin’s lipid barrier.  This means that the majority of the ascorbic acid in a traditional vitamin C serum does not actually penetrate but instead sits on top of the skin.  This can lead to irritation and is part of the reason why many vitamin C serums are associated with acne outbreaks.  Sodium asorbyl phosphate on the other hand, with it’s stabilizing salt molecule, easily penetrates the skin’s lipid barrier, absorbing deep into the skin tissue where the enzyme phosphatase breaks it down into ascorbic acid, the active form of the vitamin in the body.  Sodium ascorbyl phosphate, with its great penetrability, has also been shown to be an effective ingredient at battling acne (while as mentioned before, topical ascorbic acid can trigger acne outbreaks).

While there are some drawbacks of vitamin C used topically when using traditional ascorbic acid, these drawbacks can be overcome by choosing a more advanced form of the vitamin that is better formulated for topical use.  While some skin care companies still claim that not enough studies have been done to show the efficacy of these forms of the vitamin, and prefer to stick to the cheaper, more volatile ascorbic acid in their formulations, anyone who has ever used a well-formulated product such as Mad Hippie vitamin C serum will be quick to counter.

While ascorbic acid might be the active form of vitamin C in the body, attaching a salt molecule to stabilize and allow penetration into the skin is vital in obtaining the full benefit of this essential antioxidant vitamin.