This vitamin C serum transformed my complexion – here’s why

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Vitamin C is a gold standard skincare ingredient and for good reason, as it has the ability to help solve a plethora of skin concerns. From lines and wrinkles to dark spots, texture issues and even acne, it was last year’s most googled skincare ingredient, and is celebrated as a one-stop-shop for gorgeous skin.

“It’s essential for a large number of processes in our bodies, and when it comes to our skin, vitamin C helps stimulate all important collagen formation, needed to keep skin firm. It’s also a potent antioxidant, which means it protects against cell damage and ultimately premature ageing, by neutralising free radicals,” explains aesthetic doctor, David Jack.

Not only does vitamin C protect against free radicals caused by sun, smoke, pollution, and even blue light from our devices, “it also inhibits melanin formation to reduce hyperpigmentation, and thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties this clever vitamin can calm inflammatory acne and reduce redness too,”he adds.

OK, we’re sold. But Jack warns that when it comes to skincare, not all vitamin C formulations are equal. “The active form of vitamin C is a chemical known as ascorbic acid, and the most active form of this is L-ascorbic acid which is highly unstable and has a low pH (acidity level).

“This low pH can irritate the skin if the acid gets exposed to oxygen, which means airtight containers are a must. Plus, ascorbic acid is also water soluble, so it struggles to penetrate deeply into the skin, as it’s blocked by the fatty waterproof layer in the upper levels of the skin that serves to protect our skin barrier,” explains Jack.

Despite this, L-ascorbic acid is used in a many vitamin C based skincare products, but you won’t find it in Revision’s C+ correcting complex. Revision Skincare is a medical grade cosmeceutical brand hailing from the States. It has a firm focus on youth-boosting the skin without compromising its long-term health. That’s why, instead of using L-ascorbic acid, this serum contains tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate (THD), a highly stable form of vitamin C that is considered structurally similar to L-ascorbic acid – but unlike L-ascorbic acid, it’s able to penetrate the skin barrier much more effectively reaching deeper within the skin to work its magic.

But how does this high-end formula perform on the skin? We’ve been busy testing it to find out.

As recommended, we used one pump of the treatment both morning and night, post cleansing and before moisturiser. To ensure that we gave enough time to see what this could do, we tested the product for a total of three months, examining how easy it was to use, whether it caused any irritation and how it fared when it came to brightening, tightening, and evening out our skin tone.

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This odourless milky lotion serum is housed in a hard and heavy black plastic bottle that has a faint graining to it, that makes it look more like metal – which elevates the aesthetic for a luxe finish. Claiming to be suitable for all skin types, it lists the key ingredients on the front, and repeats the recommended usage directions at the back, in case you forget once you’ve thrown the box away – which is handy. It also has a warning note to remind you to avoid the eye area when applying morning and night, and it indicates that once open it has an impressive 24-month shelf life.

As the formula features 30 per cent THD ascorbate, there was some trepidation when it came to testing this serum as we’d had bad experiences in the past with other potent vitamin C products, namely irritation and breakouts. However, the THD in this oil-free formula, has a neutral pH of 7, and is packed full of skin friendly actives that bolster the good bacteria in your skin microbiome, an ecosystem of bacteria on the skin’s surface that plays a vital role in the health of your skin.

When your microbiome isn’t balanced dryness, uneven skin tone, lines, wrinkles and inflammatory skin conditions like acne can ensue. So together with the antioxidant rich vitamin E that also moisturises and strengthens the skin barrier function – it was unlikely that this high-tech formula would cause any problems. And it didn’t.

We found the formula sinks into skin in seconds, so you’ve got to be quick on the mark when it comes to massaging it all over your face. But ultimately, we appreciated the rapid penetration, as this meant there was no waiting around to apply our SPF on top each morning and we could go straight to bed at night too. And while our combination skin didn’t need anything more than this to keep it moisturised and we simply used this product and an SPF during the testing period to really see what it could do; you can layer other actives on top too. Even retinol, which was once a no-no combination, as traditionally used L-ascorbic acid’s low pH and retinol’s higher pH would render each other ineffective.

In clinical trials, 68 per cent of users showed an improvement in the appearance of skin radiance, 77 per cent saw a reduction in wrinkles volume and 88 per cent saw an improvement in the appearance of age spots, aka hyperpigmentation. It was the latter area that we hoped to see the most changes as we had developed small flat brown spots that we’d never had before. But what we found was that although there was some improvement here, we actually saw a major reduction in breakouts and redness, we had tighter looking pores, and our skin felt firmer and had a more plump and youthful appearance.

We are big fans of this vitamin C corrector, and since it doesn’t come cheap it’s a relief that it does what it says and more. It would be ideal if there was a way to know when the product is running out as the packaging doesn’t allow for you to see inside like a glass bottle would, for example. But it lasted around three months even though we found there were days when we needed a little more than two pumps.

We loved that it protects against the damage caused by blue light as like most people we’re regularly glued to a screen, and while perhaps we were expecting miracles when it came to our pigmentation, we’re still pleased with the reduction we did see and the general glow our skin now has. While we were frankly surprised by how much we noticed the collagen boosting effects, and we’re pretty convinced that the random rashes we used to get across our forehead have disappeared thanks to the microbiome friendly formula.