Why Green Tea Serum Top Trumps Vitamin C for Antioxidant Protection
If you are a skincare enthusiast, then you will already be familiar with the benefits of antioxidants for skin health. Environmental protection is high up on the skincare agenda and a healthy dose of antioxidants applied to the skin can help mop up those free radicals produced by exposure to UV light and pollution, which, left unchecked, can lead to cell damage and ageing to the skin.
Skincare experts, including Caroline Hirons and Nadine Baggott, frequently remind us of the virtues of Vitamin C as an antioxidant and brightening ingredient for the skin. But evidence shows that single antioxidant compounds, like Vitamin C, Resveratrol or Vitamin E, may not be the first choice for environmental protection.
Antioxidants love to party!
Green Tea Antioxidants Permeating Cell Membrane
When it comes to antioxidant capacity, the more antioxidants the merrier! Plant extracts contain a variety of antioxidant compounds and, because antioxidants work together synergistically, the total antioxidant protection offered is greater than the sum of their parts.
What is more, antioxidant compounds may be either water soluble or fat soluble. Ideally, you need both to fight free radicals in the cellular lipid membrane and its hydrophilic core. Vitamin-C, in its L-Ascorbic Acid form, is water-soluble and does not penetrate easily through the cell membrane.
Green tea and Green Rooibos tea botanical extracts, on the other hand, contain a plethora of phenolic compounds, including fat-soluble and water-soluble antioxidants, which together offer superior antioxidant potential.
Limitations of Vitamin C in Skincare
Antioxidant Vitamin C Serum
Vitamin C comes in many forms. The purest form and probably the most touted in skincare is the isomer L-Ascorbic Acid. Unfortunately, this water-soluble form of vitamin C is highly unstable and, when exposed to light and/or air, it not only oxidises, becoming ineffective, but can be irritating to the skin. Besides that, ascorbic acid is very pH dependent. To be able to penetrate our skin the formulation requires a pH of less than 3.5. For those of us with sensitive skin, such low pH products are not ideal.
Many beauty brands have overcome these limitations of Vitamin C by using a vitamin C derivative in their formulation, such as Ascorbyl palmitate, Sodium Ascorbyl phosphate or Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate. Derivatives have advantages in that they are more stable, less irritating, and not pH dependent. Sadly, they are not as effective as L-ascorbic acid, as all derivatives need to be converted to L-ascorbic acid to be used by the body.
Perhaps more alarming, studies have shown that Vitamin C derivative Ascorbyl palmitate promoted ultra violet light lipid peroxidation, and so despite its antioxidant properties, ascorbic palmitate may intensify skin damage following physiologic doses of ultraviolet radiation.
Advantages of Green Tea Extracts
Green Tea Antioxidants in Skincare
Green tea and green rooibos tea are botanical extracts, which contain not just a single antioxidant compound but a variety of antioxidants compounds, offering superior antioxidant capacity. Tea polyphenols are generally made up of two classes; flavonoids and phenolic acids, the combination of which will be unique to their plant source.
Polyphenols are popular cosmetic ingredients because they not only help with reducing oxidative stress but have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.
Most of the polyphenols found in green tea (Camelia sinesis) are flavonols, commonly known as catechins. The best known catechin in green tea is Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) but other catechins found in green tea extract include epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate and epicatechin, as well as flavanols such as kaempferol, quercetin and myricitin.
Rooibos Tea as Antioxidants in Skincare
Rooibos, or Aspaalthus linearis, strictly speaking is an herb, not a tea, but we drink it as a tea beverage, and it is rich in antioxidants. Rooibos contains a total of 187 phenolic compounds, with flavonoids, tyrosols and phenolic acids being the most represented types. Whilst aspalathin is an antioxidant compound unique to rooibos, and for which it is best known, all phenolic compounds present in rooibos play a role in antioxidant protection.
Whilst resveratrol is also a polyphenol, let us not forget that resveratrol is a single polyphenolic compound that has been isolated, normally from grapes, and stabalised. Resveratrol, like Vitamin C, is water soluble. Single antioxidant compounds, by the very nature of being single, omit the opportunity to amplify antioxidant potential from synergistic effects.
MAYSAMA Green Rooibos Pressed Serum
MAYSAMA Green Rooibos Pressed Serum
UK beauty brand, MAYSAMA, have harnessed the power of green rooibos for all its antioxidant power and our MAYSAMA Green Rooibos Pressed Serum packs a punch for antioxidant protection.
Our pharmaceutical green rooibos ingredient has a patented extraction process which concentrates the aspalathin content (the main flavonoid in rooibos) and enhances the concentration of all polyphenols, to give a cosmetic ingredient with superior antioxidant capacity.
Time to up the Anti!
So, why have one antioxidant, when you can have 187? MAYSAMA Green Rooibos Pressed Serum contains all the natural goodness of green tea polyphenols, amplified by pharmaceutical technology, providing an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) with unrivaled potency.
Before you jump on the Vitamin C juicy train, remember that more antioxidants give you better environmental protection. By all means, use your high concentration Vitamin C serum for its brightening effect, but, when it comes to antioxidant protection, combining this with a more broad spectrum botanical antioxidant serum, like MAYSAMA Green Rooibos Pressed Serum, will serve you well.
But rooibos is far more than an antioxidant! Check out www.maysama.com to find out more!