When it comes to skincare, nature should always be the first ingredient. That’s why here at Juice Beauty, we swap the junk for juice — in this case, grape juice.
Today, we’re going to talk about a new ingredient that’s taking the skincare world by storm: resveratrol. What is this ingredient, and why is everybody talking about it? What are the effects of resveratrol on your skin? Keep reading to learn all the answers.
What Is Resveratrol?
Resveratrol is one of nature’s strongest chemicals. In your body, resveratrol supplements can lower cholesterol, reduce inflammation, and support your overall heart health.
Other health benefits of resveratrol include lowering blood pressure, supporting cardiovascular health, and supporting your health against age-related concerns. However, when it comes to your skin, this ingredient is known for its antioxidant properties.
Chemically speaking, resveratrol is a type of polyphenol found in red wine, blueberries, dark chocolate, and grapes most of all.
Polyphenols are a class of plant-based nutrients that feed your body’s cells and prevent chemical imbalances that would disrupt your organ systems, including your skin. This makes resveratrol (and the antioxidants it offers) an essential part of a nourishing skincare routine.
How Do Antioxidants Work?
As an antioxidant, resveratrol is a powerful tool for managing skin impurities. These compounds can help clear blemishes, brighten dull skin, and smooth out the look discoloration and dark spots.
So, how does it work? To understand why antioxidants are such an important skincare ingredient, we have to get into a bit of chemistry.
Your skin — like everything else in nature — is made from a handful of key chemical elements, the most important of which are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Carbon is the most abundant element, playing key roles in each cell and structure in your skin. Oxygen is the lowest concentration in your skin.
Together, these elements make up the internal structure of your skin. They create your skin cells and all of the organelles within, as well as the other key building blocks of skin: proteins, lipids, and water. As you can imagine, this is a very delicate system that must remain in balance to keep your skin healthy and strong. If even one element goes awry, there can be major side effects.
The most common element to cause problems is oxygen. When your body creates energy within your cells, this chemical reaction can leave oxygen atoms with a missing electron, transforming them into free radicals.
These unstable atoms are desperate to find a new electron. If one isn’t readily available, free radicals will rip into skin cells and steal an electron from another molecule. This process can break apart entire skin cells.
When your skin contains too many free radicals, it enters a state of chaos called oxidative stress. However, your body has a natural defense against free radicals: antioxidants.
Antioxidants are chemical compounds that are designed to bond with free radicals. By giving these unstable atoms their spare electron, antioxidants support your wellness during exposure to oxidative stress and the cell damage that comes with it.
5 Resveratrol Benefits for Skin
Antioxidants are one of the strongest defenders of healthy skin, and resveratrol has an incredibly high antioxidant potential. This means that all of the benefits of antioxidants are benefits of this skincare ingredient too.
We could go on and on about the benefits of resveratrol for your skin, but we’ll start off with the five most popular.
1. Relieve Irritated Skin
Irritation is a common skin concern for several skin types. From chapped dry skin in the winter to inflamed acne flareups in the summer, skin irritation is incredibly uncomfortable. Thankfully, resveratrol can help with that.
Resveratrol has soothing properties, which help it soothe irritated skin. This benefit is thanks to the skincare ingredient’s status as an antioxidant.
When your body is overrun with free radicals, your immune system kicks into gear in an effort to heal damaged skin cells. Irritation is a side effect of this immune response. By working to support your cells during exposure to damaging free radicals, resveratrol can help soothe the skin.
2. Brighten Dull or Tired Skin
The next benefit of resveratrol for skin is also connected to calming irritation and brightening the look of your skin.
Skin cells damaged by free radicals don’t just disappear from the skin once they’ve lost an electron. Those dead skin cells often become trapped on the skin, held together by the stolen electron that killed them. When damaged or dead skin cells build up on the surface of your skin, it can dull your natural glow and cause a dry skin look.
Resveratrol helps brighten skin by helping your complexion clear away dead skin cells. It does this by breaking the remaining chemical bonds holding those cells to the surface of your skin.
3. Reduce the Appearance of Fine Lines and Wrinkles
Your skin is a complex organ with many layers and supporting structures that hold everything together. If free radicals break apart these important structures, the inner damage can have a huge impact on the surface of your skin. One example of this is the formation of wrinkles and fine lines.
Wrinkles are caused by a weakened skin structure. Specifically, they develop when the structural proteins holding up your skin start to fail. These proteins — collagen and elastin — naturally deteriorate as you age, but they can break down early as a side effect of oxidative stress.
By protecting collagen and elastin from damage by free radicals, resveratrol and antioxidants like it help prevent premature skin aging and smooth away fine lines and wrinkles from the skin.
4. Protect Against Harmful UV Rays
The benefits of resveratrol go beyond its status as an antioxidant. In addition to preventing premature signs of aging by relieving oxidative stress, this skincare ingredient can also help avoid photoaging by protecting against UV radiation.
In nature, resveratrol is known for protecting plants from ultraviolet rays. Now, dermatologists are learning that the polyphenol can do the same for human skin.
Resveratrol protects against UVA rays specifically, a type of sunlight that can penetrate the skin barrier and damage the cells within. This damage is called photoaging because it often results in sun damage-induced signs of aging, like sun spots (also called age spots) and wrinkles.
5. Supports Health Skin
The last way resveratrol benefits your skin is by promoting healthy skin from the inside out. It does this by supporting cell regeneration.
Even without damage, your skin cells naturally deteriorate and are replaced by fresh skin from underneath. This cycle of new skin cells relies on a biological process called cell regeneration where skin cells duplicate to create brand new cells.
Resveratrol helps your body generate new skin cells by supporting cell proliferation (aka cell duplication). In doing so, this skincare ingredient ensures your skin has a constant supply of fresh, healthy cells to carry out your skin function.
How To Add Resveratrol Benefits to Your Skincare Routine
There’s a reason why resveratrol is taking off in the skincare industry. The benefits speak for themselves! With so much to offer for your skin, it’s not a matter of if you should add resveratrol to your skincare routine but how.
Our Stem Cellular SuperGrape Youth Renew Serum with Hyaluronic Acid is made with the rare Sagrantino grape, a powerful fruit packed full of resveratrol. This product works to renew and refresh skin for a more youthful glow through intense hydration and powerful doses of antioxidants.
But don’t just take our word for it. In clinical studies, SuperGrape showed up to 144% higher antioxidant levels and up to 78% higher antioxidant phenolic value than the leading serum. With stronger antioxidants and more polyphenols like resveratrol, it’s no wonder 100% of participants experienced younger, happier-looking skin.
SuperGrape Youth Renew Serum is all juice, no junk. It’s made with the highest-quality skincare ingredients, including:
- Sagrantino Grape: This super grape is grown at our own Juice Beauty vineyards as a part of our Farm To Beauty™ initiative. Sagrantino grapes have the highest antioxidant level, making them strong protectors against oxidative stress.
- Pricky Pear: This potent fruit juice has intense skin-soothing properties, making it a powerful tool for improving skin tone and texture. The hydrating nature of prickly pear is the perfect complement to the antioxidant-rich Sagrantino grape.
- Hyaluronic Acid: This alpha hydroxy acid is a powerhouse skincare acid known for its skin-plumping effects. This acid works by supporting your skin’s natural moisture barrier.
A Grape a Day Keeps the Skin Issues Away
Forget about the apples. If you’re looking to achieve the smooth and supple skin of your dreams, look to the power of SuperGrape.
Resveratrol is the secret ingredient you’ve been looking for to smooth, brighten, and support your skin. Its antioxidant properties give it the strength it needs to knock out free radicals and prevent damage to your skin.
Cool as a glass of grape juice, SuperGrape-powered skincare from Juice Beauty delivers a stunning complexion that looks as good as it feels.
Sources:
Anatomy, Skin (Integument), Epidermis - StatPearls | National Library of Medicine
Free Radicals, Antioxidants in Disease and Health | National Library of Medicine
Oxidative Stress: Causes, Symptoms & Treatment | Cleveland Clinic
Resveratrol: A Double-Edged Sword in Health Benefits | National Library of Medicine
Anti-Inflammatory Action and Mechanisms of Resveratrol | National Library of Medicine
Inflammatory responses and inflammation-associated diseases in organs | National Library of Medicine
Free Radicals and Extrinsic Skin Aging | National Library of Medicine
Collagen: What It Is, Types, Function & Benefits | Cleveland Clinic
Photoaging (sun damage) | Yale Medicine
Definition of cell proliferation | National Cancer Institute