While Vitamin is well tolerated for a lot of people, there are specific benefits for acne and hyperpigmentation-prone skin.

What is vitamin C?

Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin, and it’s imperative to good nutrition. Vitamin C is a coenzyme to collagen production. Coenzymes bind to enzymes and help them perform their function. Vitamins C helps form the protein used to make skin as well as the blood vessels required for healing wounds and forming scar tissues. Furthermore, they aid in the absorption of iron, an element that is crucial to oxygen circulation in the body.

Vitamin C enhances Sunscreen.

Vitamin C gives a good brightness and a good glow, and when used with sunscreen, it can be even more efficacious. UVB rays are the rays that hurt our skin, and when vitamin C is applied, UVB takes longer to impact the skin. While vitamin C is not a replacement for sunscreen, using it under an SPF can be a really good habit during the day. It can help mitigate the damage from free radicals and reactive oxygen species. It calms them and prevents them from damaging your skin. Once UVB rays penetrate the skin, it slows the rate of free radical damage to collagen, and it helps with skin repair by reducing oxidation damage to the skin cells.

Vitamin C helps with pigmentation.

Vitamin C is also a tyrosinase inhibitor. Tyrosinase is an enzyme critical to the process of pigmentation. But when Vitamin C is applied, it reduces the activity of tyrosinase with melanocytes. Melanocytes create the color of melanin. Therefore, when tyrosinase is inhibited, the skin can’t produce as much melanin. Melanin is also an integral part of dark spots. So, if you’re someone who gets hyperpigmentation from waxing or breaking out, vitamin C could be a really good bet.

Vitamin C helps build collagen.

We can’t talk about vitamin C without talking about collagen in the skin. Vitamin C helps collagen be produced again. However, you really need to make sure that you’re eating collagen too because your body won’t store it. Given that, eating vitamin C will be more consequential than using it as skincare when it comes to collagen formation. Eating it gives you more of it rather than applying it topically in a small dose.

Vitamin C can help with collagen formation because it helps with the way the collagen fibrils line up together. Likewise, they can help with fine lines, wrinkles, and even scarring. Many people apply vitamin C in the hope that it will help with acne. However, there’s nothing in vitamin C that directly fights p acnes bacteria. On the other hand, it is anti-inflammatory so it could help in that sense.

It can provide a barrier beneath a chemical sunscreen.

Chemical sunscreens can be irritating. However, gentle vitamin C serums or moisturizers in the forms of magnesium ascorbyl phosphate or ascorbyl glucoside can help with mitigating irritation. L ascorbic acid is probably the most common form of vitamin C, but it can also be the most irritating.

In the form of magnesium ascorbyl phosphate or ascorbyl glucoside, Vitamin C is especially anti-inflammatory. Likewise, it can serve the dual purpose of enhancing your sunscreen and providing your skin a barrier when it’s beneath a chemical sunscreen.