Acne Skin care

While feeding your skin from the inside is key to keeping it looking good, scientists have found that taking extra antioxidants (and other nutrients) may not always increase levels in the skin because the body cleverly routes ingested nutrients to more survival-orientated organs. Antioxidants - both ingested and put on the skin - have been shown conclusively to help prevent and treat sunlight-induced ageing and other skin conditions. This is where antioxidant creams come in only they too are susceptible to oxidation in the jar and once on your skin, so they need to be well stabilized in order not to cause oxidant damage themselves.

Other than selling such creams in capsules, tubes or pump containers to protect them from air and light damage, companies can use particularly stable forms of the vitamins and combinations so that the various antioxidants can protect one another. For example, tocopheryl acetate is the stabilized form of vitamin E; it counters oxidants in the skin and jar; blended with ascorbic acid (one form of vitamin C) it protects beta carotene and retinyl palmitate (forms of vitamin A); and the vitamin C in turn protects the vitamin E. In other words, they 'recycle' one another. Good products will contain careful formulations which protect the vitamins and make them more likely to penetrate deeper into your skin.

Choosing a multivitamin cream:

• Don't buy one in ajar, as the daily exposure to air increases the chances of oxidation. Single application capsules are ideal, otherwise tubes or pump action bottles
• Look for a stabilized product. For instance, putting vitamin C in a lipid (oil) base gives it some protection from oxidation
• Some good products encapsulate the vitamins in minute, envelope-like structures within the cream to protect them
• Check where on the ingredients list the vitamins are - if they are right at the bottom, they are unlikely to be concentrated enough to make much difference.