From juice cleanses to exotic spa days, it seems that everybody is obsessed with getting the newest detox. A lot of times, these treatments focus on the inside of your body — but what about the outside?
Your skin is the largest organ in your body, and it’s the first line of defense against the outside world. Your skin plays a crucial role in your overall wellness, and keeping it strong is crucial.
Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most powerful active skincare ingredients out there: antioxidants. Keep reading to learn what these potent compounds are, what they can do, and how you can use them to take care of your skin. (After all, it’s earned it.)
What Are Antioxidants?
Everything in the world is made of chemical elements, including your skin. Your skin cells contain various amounts of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and more to create the building blocks of life. It’s these basic elements make the proteins and lipids that fit between your skin cells to help the organ function.
Antioxidants are one of these supporting molecules. They are designed to manage the levels of chemical elements in your skin — and intervene if something falls out of balance. This makes them the great equalizers of your skin.
How Do Antioxidants Work?
In a perfect world, your skin would remain in balance all of the time and never require the assistance of antioxidants. But this is nature, and nature is never perfect.
The most common chemical element to cause trouble in your skin is oxygen. Your skin cells rely on oxygen to generate the energy needed to grow, repair, and regenerate. However, more oxygen doesn’t necessarily mean more energy. When your skin absorbs too much oxygen from the air around it, the organ can experience significant stress.
The extra oxygen in your skin naturally wants to form chemical bonds to occupy their spare electrons, but because there is more oxygen than needed, these atoms have nowhere to go — but that doesn’t stop them from trying.
Spare atoms will try to bond with anything in sight, breaking through cell walls and damaging skin cells in the process. These unstable oxygen atoms are called free radicals.
This is where antioxidants come in, which work to keep your cells healthy during exposure to damaging free radicals.
What Are the Benefits of Antioxidants for Your Skincare Routine?
By neutralizing free radicals in the skin, antioxidants prevent the cellular damage these oxygen atoms would otherwise cause. On a cellular level, this protects the strength and integrity of your skin. However, the benefits don’t stop there.
In supporting your skin health, antioxidants can also improve the look and feel of your skin on the surface.
After all, the deeper layers of skin are the foundation of your complexion. If they are distressed, then the upper layers will be too. By the same logic, when they are healthy and content, your skin can truly glow.
Evens Skin Tone
If you have an uneven skin tone, then antioxidants can help balance your complexion for a consistent skin texture and color.
As a great neutralizer, everything antioxidants do is about balance. This makes pigmentation issues and dark spots public enemy number one. Antioxidants work to reduce the appearance of pigmentation concerns by targeting the source of this pigment: melanocytes.
The color of your skin is determined by the amount of melanin, or pigment, in it. And this pigment is made in a type of cell called melanocytes. Typically, melanocytes create even levels of pigment across your body, but free radical activity can trigger these pigment-producing cells and cause melanin levels to spike in specific locations.
By supporting cell health during exposure to free radicals, antioxidant-rich formulas can work with these affected melanocytes and bring your skin tone back into balance.
Soothing Properties
The first benefit of antioxidants for skin is their natural soothing properties.
Remember that the primary role of antioxidants is to support your skin against free radical damage. This naturally works against irritation, as unchecked oxygen molecules can bother your skin from within.
However, the soothing properties of antioxidants don’t stop there. Antioxidants might also support proper levels of enzymes within the skin.
Your skin contains thousands of enzymes that speed up chemical reactions. Some of these enzymes support your skin health by preventing irritation, but others actually encourage irritated skin. Antioxidants may help support healthy levels of these good enzymes, working to keep your skin in balance.
Smooths Visible Signs of Aging
Antioxidants interact with many enzymes in the skin, not just those connected to irritation. Another type of enzyme that this skincare ingredient works with gives antioxidants anti-aging qualities.
To understand how antioxidants can smooth out wrinkles and fine lines, you have to understand what causes age lines in the first place. Young, wrinkle-free skin relies on a structural protein called collagen to prevent the skin from folding in on itself and developing lasting wrinkles.
However, as you age, collagen levels naturally decline in the skin, resulting in fine lines and wrinkles that weren’t there before.
Anti-aging skincare treatments lift wrinkles from your face by raising collagen levels in the skin. That means these treatments need to find a way to speed up chemical reactions. Luckily, that’s the exact job of an enzyme.
Antioxidants and vitamins in particular help support collagen levels by helping to form the enzymes required to build this structural protein. With these enzymes churning out collagen, your skin can regain the strength it needs to resist fine lines and wrinkles as you age.
4 Antioxidants for Skin
Antioxidants are a class of chemical compounds, not a specific skincare ingredient on their own. You won’t find the word “antioxidant” on the ingredient label. Instead, you’re looking for ingredients with antioxidant properties. Thankfully, there are a lot of them.
1. Vitamin C
Vitamin C is a water-soluble nutrient that protects your skin cells and supports health throughout your body. It also goes by the name ascorbic acid and is found naturally in many fruits and vegetables including citrus fruits, berries, and leafy greens.
Our Prebiotix Freshly Squeezed Glow, 20% Vitamin C Serum is packed full of this powerful antioxidant to smooth your skin and encourage a healthy, balanced complexion. In fact, 96% of clinical trial participants agreed that this vitamin C serum made their skin glow and 100% felt their skin was revitalized after using this product.
2. Niacinamide
Niacinamide is a form of vitamin B3 that works on the surface of your skin to lock in moisture and treat skin concerns beneath the surface. This water-soluble nutrient is known for its hydrating and brightening properties.
Our Prebiotix C-Boost72 Hydrating Whipped Cream 20% Vitamin C Niacinamide Glow Complex combines the power of vitamin C and niacinamide to drench your skin in the juiciest hydration as fast as possible. Clinical studies showed real results in as few as 72 hours with this product, and 93% of participants reported increased hydration in just 30 minutes post-application.
3. Green Tea
Most often thought of as an herbal drink to enjoy either hot or cold, green tea is also ripe with antioxidant properties that can benefit your skin. This leaf is full of an antioxidant called catechin, which is an incredibly powerful tool against free radicals.
Our Green Apple Brightening Eye Cream combines the strength of malic acid with the potent antioxidants of green tea to minimize dark circles and support an even complexion. In fact, clinical results showed brighter-looking eyes in under 60 days.
4. Resveratrol
Resveratrol is another natural nutrient with antioxidant properties. Found in red grapes, berries, peanuts, and more, this antioxidant reinforces your skin’s natural barrier to protect from environmental threats from the outside and heal skin impurities within.
Our STEM Cellular SuperGrade Youth Renew Serum With Hyaluronic Acid is powered by resveratrol-rich Sagrantino Grapes for the most antioxidant power. Our serum had up to 144% higher antioxidant levels than the leading serums, which explains why 100% of clinical study participants reported their skin improved daily when using SuperGrape.
Support Your Skin With Antioxidants
If your body isn’t getting enough of the vitamins and nutrients it needs, you can take supplements to help fill the gaps. The same goes for your skin.
Antioxidant skincare products help reduce the amount of free radicals attacking your skin cells, which supports skin health with the added benefit of smoother, happier-looking skin. From a brighter complexion to fewer wrinkles, antioxidants can bring your skin back into balance.
Sources:
Why You Should Care About Free Radicals | Cleveland Clinic
The Immunomodulatory and Anti-Inflammatory Role of Polyphenols | National Library of Medicine
Collagen: What It Is, Types, Function & Benefits | Cleveland Clinic
Benefits of Niacinamide (Vitamin B3) | Cleveland Clinic