Not all vitamin C's are made equal

Vitamin C and Retinol are the buzz words in skincare at the moment and with very good reason. They promise results you will see at home in a short period of time. In this blog we are going to focus on Vitamin C, we will discuss Retinol in another blog.

Vitamin C is a really exceptional compound. This isn't news, we’ve known about this since pirates started using oranges to stop scurvy.  It’s one of the few ingredients that makes a visible difference to skin within a week or two, so it was one of the first ingredients we knew we had to get right.

You see, the thing that makes this vitamin so exceptional is also it’s difficulty - it’s really active.  It’s active properties are what gives it the ability to be an antioxidant (more on than later) but this means it will react with itself, the air and any light it comes into contact with, thus constantly degrading the compound.  If you are using normal vitamin C (ascorbic acid) this can happen within weeks, meaning that after production, you would have to start using the product within that time to see any benefit.  At Quintessential, we knew it was imperative that you got all of the vitamin C into your skin that we put into our product, so we sourced a self-preserved form of the vitamin.  Stable for decades, this compound breaks down upon contact with your skin, delivering vitamin C where you need it, in your skin. 

To ensure that you get as much of the vitamin C and all of other ingredients that we use, we made sure our packaging was smart and worked for our needs.  Many active ingredients, including this one, will react to light or oxygen.  These are the ingredients you want as much of as possible because they are going to give you the results you want.  There are two options, use lots of preservatives or use smart packaging.  I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to understand we went with the latter.  Our packaging is an air tight pump, with a mechanism inside that moves up instead of letting air in, all packaged into an opaque container that doesn’t let light in.  The best part?  The whole pump is 100% recyclable!.

Antioxidant is a term that is thrown around, many people can tell you the names of antioxidants but not what they actually do, so we thought we would bring you up to speed.  Every cell in your body may seem small but they have a lot going on inside.  There is all forms of metabolic processes and reactions happening, to maintain the life of the cell and ultimately you.  Some of these processes create free radicals.  Free radicals are tiny, highly reactive compounds that flurry around looking for something to bind with.  While searching for something to bind with, they can damage the inside of cells and our DNA.  This is completely normal and a part of everyday life for every cell (certainly human anyway) in the world. Antioxidants are your best defence against free radicals, they are the perfect partner for binding with free radicals.  Vitamin C is just one example, among many, of antioxidants and is something your body is already using to fight it. 

Vitamin C is used in every cell in your body, helping to protect and keep cells healthy, it even helps with wound healing.  When applied topically (to your skin), it visibly reduces pigmentation, increases radiance and evens out skin tone. 

So we know it's really important for every cell in the body and when it is used in skincare enhances radiance and helps diminish skin pigmentation and nourishes your skin.