Vitamin C is often regarded as a wrinkle fighter or an anti-aging agent. The main function of Vitamin C is to increase the synthesis of collagen which is a structural protein that is found in skin. Collagen, along with soft keratin, it is responsible for skin strength and elasticity, and its degradation leads to wrinkles that accompany aging.



Another additional skin care benefit of Vitamin C is related to its tremendous capability of countering free radicals which causes damage to the skin.

Vitamin C, however, faces a major challenge today. This is due to the oxidation tendency of Vitamin C skin care products. On coming in contact with any oxidising agent such as the atmosphere, Vitamin C in skin care products gets oxidised; thus making the Vitamin C skin care product useless and in fact counter-effective.

The oxidised Vitamin C imparts a yellowish-brown colour to the Vitamin C skin care product. This is something that you need to check before buying a Vitamin C skin care product. Even after you buy a Vitamin C skin care product, you need to store it properly and keep checking that it's still good to use. You'll need to ensure that it hasn't attained a yellowish-brown texture.

The manufacturers of Vitamin C skin care products have tried to deal with this oxidation problem in multiple ways and research is on the top of their list. One such method of retaining effectiveness of Vitamin C skin care products for a long term is to keep a high concentration (say 10%) of Vitamin C. However, this makes the Vitamin C skin care products even more expensive. The skin care products containing Vitamin C are already pretty inexpensive and making them even more expensive will throw the product manufacturers out of business.

The other way is to use Vitamin C derivatives such as ascorbyl palmitate and magnesium ascorbyl phosphate. These are not only more stable but also inexpensive. Even though the derivatives based products are not as effective as the Vitamin C skin care products, their stability against oxidation is a very desirable feature that makes them very attractive. Moreover, these are known to be less irritating too.

Talking of the effectiveness of Vitamin C skin care products, it is important to mention that not everyone responds to Vitamin C treatments. So it's not a magic potion in any way. If you don't see a noticeable difference in your skin, it might be because of your skin not responding to Vitamin C treatment (and the Vitamin C skin care products might not be at fault, at all).

As more research goes on, one can only keep our fingers crossed and wait for a complete solution to the challenges faced by Vitamin C today...