On the left, the watery serum in which I mixed the powder, and on the right is said powder displayed on the spatula.

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What's the fuss about Vitamin C?

What I'd rather use instead

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Vitamin C has a whole host of benefits for the skin, tackling wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, and elasticity[ 2 ] and in addition to stimulating collagen production and inhibiting melanin production in damaged areas, it also has a protective effect against future damage by neutralizing what causes skin aging in the first place-- not gravity, but sun exposure. Neat!





I'm going to try to avoid it, but no promises . Huzzah, I managed to find a worksafe analogy!



References:

Skin Pharmacology : the Official Journal of the Skin Pharmacology Society 1993, link ] 1. Geesin JC, Regulation of collagen synthesis in human dermal fibroblasts by the sodium and magnesium salts of ascorbyl-2-phosphate,1993,

Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1999, [ link ] 2. Traikovich SS. Use of Topical Ascorbic Acid and Its Effects on Photodamaged Skin Topography,1999, [



Ready to get nerdy and possibly NSFW?. Huzzah, I managed to find a worksafe analogy!

What's the fuss about Vitamin C?

Telang, 2013

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References:

Indian Dermatol Online J. 2013, [ 3, 4. Telang, P.S. Vitamin C in dermatology,2013, [ link

What I'd rather use instead

There are many compounds made from ascorbic acid that are designed to keep the antioxidant more stable. However many of these compounds haven’t been shown to act the same way as ascorbic acid or penetrate the skin. As well, enzymes in the skin are required to convert these compounds back into ascorbic acid, and there is little evidence to show that this occurs to a large extent.

I'm a fan of acid. For someone who used to view chemical exfoliants with fear and distrust, I've certainly done a complete about-face on the subject; if I was at a cosmetics convention and you slid up to me whispering "" I very well might blithely follow you, excitedly chattering about whether it's also pH dependent and whether it's commercially available yet, trench coat notwithstanding.In addition to having AHA (Alpha hydroxy acid) and BHA (Beta hydroxy acid) in the "actives" category of my, I also have in my stable of acids a form of Vitamin C, called L-AA (L-ascorbic acid) and if you're a skincare fan, you've probably heard of the anti-aging powers of Vitamin C. You've probably heard of theof some serums and expensive creams, the warnings to keep them away from light, air, and heat, making them difficult to use and prone to spoilage.The version I use is, but it's just as annoying to use-- shuttling back and forth to the fridge, decanting small portions into other bottles, forgetting to use it for days on end because I do both my AM and PM routines half asleep, it's all aggravating. It's tempting to latch onto other forms of Vitamin C which promise to provide the same effects but in stable formulations that won't have you pondering a mini-fridge for your skincare. Lured by a demonstration on Korean beauty show Get It Beauty, I snatched up this powdered Vitamin C (SAP, aka Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate), amazed at how convenient it looked. A powder that could be mixed into any, yes any, current skincare product without? Yes please! Get in my cart!Except that it sucked.(By the way, if you are wondering what that gorgeous bottle is, you can read more about it here:.)Like many things that seem too good to be true, this powder was highly disappointing although I'll freely admit that it may work really well for others. Sadly I wasn't able to test it's long-term hyperpigmentation fading abilities vs a traditional L-AA serum, and while I certainly quickly formed an (irate) opinion on the product, I felt so grumpy toward it that I wasn't ready to devote the time to research it properly. Now that I've spent several nights squinting at PDFs and getting cockblocked by paywalls, I'm ready to get this off my to-do list.Milky Dress Vita C+ PowderA stable, non-pH-dependent, powdered form of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) that can be mixed into other skincare.It's a finely milled powder, so I held my breath while the jar was open so I didn't end up with an impromptu single test subject experiment on the effects of absorbing ascorbic acid through the lungs.Very powdery powder (heh), like powdered sugar. Don't spill it, or take it with you on flights unless you want to get reeeeaaal friendly with the TSA.5g, but the powder is so lightweight that it's more than you might think.2/5, it gets an extra pity star for being an interesting concept.Around $8-20, depending if you get it directly from Korea.I literally pawned this off on as many friends as would take decants of it, just to get it off my hands.Why? Because even when added to my most watery serums, it was a sticky mess to use and clogged my skin, causingbreakouts. This is why I never got to test the long-term hyperpigmentation fading benefits, because it was causing new acne at a rapid rate and I pulled the eject cord by the end of the week. It might work well for someone who doesn't have clog-prone skin + cannot tolerate the slight sting of a low pH L-AA serum, but it's a hard pass for me.Plus, after chatting with cosmetic chemist Stephen Alain Ko ofand biochem nerd and skincare formulator Chel ofon the various forms of Vitamin C, I'm not all that convinced that SAP (the kind in this powder) is up to par with L-AA, despite L-AA being notoriously unstable. I wasn't able to find much in the way of studies supporting it, other than a few which Ko advised had problematic testing methods, or control groups that had better results than the active group!Frustrated by my lack of results, I reached out to Michelle, the chemist and blogger at, and she linked me to an abstract that suggests that MAP is a stronger contender for L-AA's anti-aging throne, at least on the collagen-building front. In, Geesin writes: "The magnesium salt of ascorbyl-2-phosphate was found to be equivalent to ascorbic acid in stimulating collagen synthesis in these assays, while theas ascorbic acid."[] Ten times the concentration of SAP to match L-AA's effect!You've probably heard about free radicals, and how they're attempting to kill you with you own cells. (Yes, that was a hyperbolic cancer reference. What can I say, cancer is terrifying.) You have probably heard that antioxidants help fight free radicals, but like many people who are weary from being deluged with clickbaity news articles pronouncing an assortment of conflicting messages, your understanding may be limited to things like "eat dark leafy greens" and "blueberries and pomegranates are good for you" and possibly "" which means you guiltily have a spinach salad for lunch after eating bacon at breakfast. I am one of those people; my understanding of free radicals went no further than reading a book on omega fatty acids and free radicals as a young teenager in the mid-90's while working a summer job at a health food store.So, to make this less boring to read, I'm going to use an analogy. Imagine that there's a kid with a snack in one hand and a drink in the other. He's balanced, with all his needs met. A bully wearing a t-shirt that says "UV Radiation 4 Ever!" comes up and smacks the snack out of the kid's hand. The kid still has his drink, but now he's hangry and about to go off on a tantrum. Thankfully, Vitamin C is nearby with spare snacks, and promptly plops a fresh snack into the kid's hand before his first wail has gained top volume. Normally, the kid (molecule) would go looking for someone else who still has their snack (2nd electron) and steal theirs, potentially setting off a chain reaction that has bad consequences for your playground (cell) but through the generosity and preparedness of Vitamin C, no damage was done, and the bully's (UV's) actions have had no lasting effect.This is, to my understanding, how Vitamin C is photoprotective; although it doesn'tthe UV from penetrating into the deeper layers of the skin (that's what sunscreen is for, mostly), it does stand by with spare electrons ready to be donated to molecules who have non-consensually lost one of theirs via UV damage, thus negating the chain reaction of damage to the cell: "When the skin is exposed to UV light, ROS such as the superoxide ion, peroxide and singlet oxygen are generated. Vit. C protects the skin from oxidative stress by sequentially donating electrons to neutralize the free radicals."[After reading up on it, I realized this is why I often see descriptions of Vitamin C's 'synergy' with sunscreen, or that it 'boosts' the effect. Sunscreen attempts to filter out the UV from reaching the lower layers of the skin in the first place, and Vitamin C helps to neutralize the UV that managed to sneak through. Vitamin C is not an alternative to sunscreen. It can give you aphotoprotective effect though, which was interesting: "The half-life in the skin after achieving maximum concentration is 4 days."[] with a maximum efficiency at a concentration of 20%. It also mentions building up a "persistent reservoir" in skin tissue via regular application of Vitamin C for photoprotection to be effective, as UV exposure depletes the stored Vitamin C. It also recommended that application of Vitamin C be after the sun exposure, not before, to replenish the tissue reservoir of Vitamin C lost to the UV fight.The ways in which free radicals and UV damages the skin is a bigger topic than can be cheekily summarized in a blog post that's ostentatiously a review about a specific product, so let's leave it at that.So here's the deal-- while L-AA is a pain to use, part of what makes it so effective is the fact that it's so reactive. It's like a helicopter mom hovering nearby with snack electrons in case you need one; it's not a sustainable state-- sooner or later those snacks are going to be eaten, or they'll go cold, or mom will get tired of lurking in your doorway and tell you there's leftovers in the fridge if you get hungry later.If you're looking for something with the most antioxidant punch, that's going to be L-AA. There are other forms out there that are more stable, such as MAP (Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate) or THDA (Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate) but there's always a trade-off, in concentration, formulation, rate of delivery into the skin, etc. As I mentioned earlier, there was very limited information available on the effectiveness of SAP, and that while it's a stable form before application, the few studies I found mentioned that it has to undergo a reaction within the skin to become effective, which was discussed by Ko in his post:(my emphasis):So, even without the clogging issue of the Milky Dress powder, it looks like my old faithful OST C20 is still the way to go (at least for me) although it certainly has flaws in its formulation, as Chel detailed in her post:. Skinceuticals, of the $160+ L-AA serum fame, has cornered the market (literally, with) on L-AA serums with stabilizing sidekicks Ferulic acid and Vitamin E, at the pH necessary for L-AA to do it's thing. (You can read more about.)So, although your options for ansidekick-stabilized L-AA might be limited,(although you can't sell it due the patent) which is how Chel got her start into the madcap world of cosmetic formulation. If you have the patience, time, and willingness to be really neurotic about sanitation, you can DIY a sparkling fresh bottle of L-AA serum whenever you need. As for me, I'm far too lazy for all that ...and sterilizing andand measuring andand testing andand then. I can't quite recall the last time I cleaned my bathroom counter; I have no business mixing up skincare in my house.At $15 a bottle, I'd rather just pick up a bottle of OST C20 and not cry salty tears over it oxidizing if I've spaced out and left it on my bathroom counter one too many times. The C20 pictured above is my third empty bottle, and if I wasn't currently on a mega prescription of azelaic acid and tretinoin ... wait a second, I'm technically not on said prescription right now for "photosensitization in the summer" reasons, and since Vitamin C is photoprotective and would boost the efficacy of my sunscreen, I think I'm going to snap myself up a fourth bottle of this for the sunny summer months.