Antioxidants for Healthy Skin

Ok, so it's been awhile since I've posted anything on the beauty blog but honestly it's because I've been spending a lot of time experimenting on myself with different skin care ingredients for research. So I can give ya'll the straight TRUTH in this blog, not the PAID truth lol. Summer time can be a difficult time to be experimental with your skin. During the winter, I indulged in Retinol, BHA and AHA acids, anything that I felt could help me achieve the long sought after "glass skin" that many of us are searching for. I will write another post about Retinol (which I love) but in short I found it too risky to use during the summer due to the fact that although it has great healing power, it does thin the skin a bit and make you more sensitive to the sun. One of the first things you learn as an Aesthetician is that the Sun is the number 1 cause of aging and skin damage, so many products I used during winter seemed counter intuitive to use during summer months. I had to re-think my regimen...

I think many of us do not fully understand what antioxidants are, before I learned the science behind it I just thought it was "like stuff that helped you detox"....

Here's a bit of the science: pollution, the sun, smoking, all these create free radicals. Which are little beauty and health stealing a**holes, they are missing an electron and steal them from your healthy cells. These little f***kers are the reason some foundations OXIDIZE. Living in an urban environment we are faced with even more of these free radicals everyday, but antioxidants are here to come to our rescue. They give the free radicals an extra electron, which stabilizes it and stops it from creating a chain of oxidation a.k.a. stealing your beauty and over all heath.

MAKEUP ARTISTS: adding an antioxidant serum to your kit can help extend the wear of your client's foundation and keep it from oxidizing. Most foundations contain an antioxidant as a preservative, but often not enough in comparison to the pollution we face everyday in LA. I use a strong resveratrol and ferulic acid serum from The Ordinary underneath my makeup, however this serum all though oil free goes on super oily and needs a little drying time. So do research on formulas that will work best for you and your clients.

NOW TO THE GOOD SH*T.... MY FAV ANTIOXIDANTS.

VITAMIN C: Do you have dull skin, dark spots, melasma, wrinkles, do you want your face to glow? Say hello to your new BFF... Vitamin C. Vitamin C does an amazing job clearing up hyper-pigmentation, I saw results within days. I'm going to be honest I was telling myself half of the sun spots I had were cute freckles, don't play yourself like me, get Vitamin C. I use L-ascorbic Acid crystals (from the Ordinary, of course lol) that I mix into my moisturizer. By the way do not mix Vitamin C with products containing Niacinamide because they may create an unfavorable reaction. Some other benefits of Vitamin C include helping the skin produce collagen for younger looking, plump skin, which in turn also speeds up the skin's healing process. If you wake up puffy like me, Vitamin C may be able to help reduce the inflammation. I have a theory solely based of what I've learned studying natural health.. but I believe Vitamin C can help those with a sweet tooth like myself from getting candida breakouts (pimples that usually occur on the cheekbones)... (candida and skin is a whole other future post) Candida is a fungus that lives within our intestinal track (that can spread throughout the body) and Vitamin C is known to have anti-fungal properties (more so in the natural health world than in skincare.)

RESVERATROL: Resveratrol is an antimicrobial substance produced by plants in response to stress, infection, or strong UV radiation, it is a potent polyphenolic antioxidant that’s found in red grapes, red wine, nuts, and fruits such as blueberries and cranberries. I'm not going to lie, it's an anti-oxidant, it's does all the sh*t I already talked about.

FERULIC ACID: This Antioxidant helps to enhance the stability of Vitamin C and other antioxidants.

VITAMIN E: I'm not going to go in depth on this one I feel like everyone has basic knowledge of the benefits.

For extra effectiveness taking Alpha Lipoic acid and CoQ10 internally can help beautify and protect the skin even more. Alpha Lipoic Acid helps control our blood sugar as well is an antioxidant and CoQ10 is an antioxidant that naturally occurs in our skin but decreases as we get older.

whooo that's a lot of info, That's all for today friends....Thanks for reading! There a lot of Aestheticians out there...But I'm a F**king Skin Scientist at this point lol.

Much Love....

Before using Antioxidants