Boost Your Skin Care Knowledge: What Do Antioxidants Do for Your Skin?

You’ve probably heard of antioxidants here and there, maybe hearing about them as something to work into your diet or seeing the word on your skin care products. For a lot of us, that’s one of those terms that we just say, “Yeah sure, antioxidants, I’ve heard those are healthy,” but you might not know exactly what they are or why they’re good for you. Well, that’s about to change. Here’s everything you need to know about antioxidants in skin care and why you should work them into your routine.

What Are Antioxidants?

Antioxidants are compounds that do one very particular job: protecting you from oxidative damage caused by free radicals. I just threw a bunch of sciency terms at you, so let’s break it down.

Free radicals are atoms that are incomplete and are searching for other atoms to bind with. Free radicals that get into your skin will try to bind with the atoms in your skin cells, but the problem is that this causes damage to the cell. That damage is called oxidative stress.

Antioxidants are basically your skin’s personal bodyguards against free radicals. They bind with the free radicals instead, so those free radicals don’t bind with atoms in your skin. Essentially, they’re taking the bullet and neutralizing the threat of free radicals.

What Do Antioxidants Do for Your Skin?

That explanation of free radicals and antioxidants might have helped you picture what antioxidants do, but the next question is, how does this benefit your skin? Why is it so important to prevent oxidative damage? There are several benefits to using skin care with antioxidants.

1. Preventing and Minimizing Sun Damage

Excess sun exposure is one of the top ways your skin gets exposed to free radicals. By counteracting free radicals, antioxidants can help you ward off damage from sun exposure, like premature aging and even skin cancer.

A quick disclaimer here, though: antioxidants are a great help, but they can only do so much. They’re a supplement to sunscreen and other sun protection steps, not a replacement for them.

1. Keeping Your Skin Hydrated

On top of photoaging and skin cancer and other types of damage, oxidative stress can also dry out your skin. Antioxidants shield you from some of that damage and dryness so your skin stays healthier and more hydrated.

1. Repairing Some Photoaging

Antioxidants are mostly preventative by blocking free radicals before they can damage your skin. But there’s also some evidence that they can help to counteract some signs of premature aging like wrinkles and age spots. They could help to stimulate collagen and elastin production to help you maintain a younger and fresher look.

1. Helping Your Skin Heal

Another problem with oxidative damage is that it can hold back your skin’s healing process. This means that things like cuts and scrapes will take longer to heal and acne breakouts might take longer to go away. When that healing process is slower and less effective, it also makes you more likely to develop scars. Plus, many professional skin treatments like chemical peels and microneedling rely on your skin’s healing, so oxidative damage can put a damper on those results too. But antioxidants can help your skin heal more smoothly and efficiently.

1. Reducing Inflammation

Skin inflammation is no one’s friend – who wants skin that looks pink and irritated or the discomfort of skin inflammation? There are lots of exposures and conditions and issues that can cause inflammation, but free radicals are among them. By fighting off free radicals before they have a chance to do damage, antioxidants can keep that inflammation away too.

1. Lowering Your Risk for Certain Skin Conditions

There are a lot of skin conditions that are just genetic or that you can’t do much about, but studies have found that certain skin conditions like acne and atopic dermatitis and vitiligo are associated with lower levels of antioxidants. That means upping your antioxidants could help to keep conditions like these at bay (although this is still being studied so it’s not conclusive). Plus, oxidative stress can worsen the symptoms of some skin conditions like psoriasis, so antioxidants can help you keep your symptoms in check.

How Do I Get Antioxidants for My Skin?

So now comes the big question – if antioxidants can do so much for your skin, how do you start raking in those benefits and taking advantage of what those beautiful antioxidants have to offer?

The main way you give your skin more antioxidants is through topical skin care products. Fortunately, because antioxidants are well-documented as having great effects on skin, you can find antioxidant-rich products for just about any step in your skin care routine.

For example, Replenix Antioxidant Hydrating Cleanser is a moisturizing skin cleanser that infuses your skin with antioxidants to help its resilience and recovery. If you want something more intensive, Osmosis Replenish Antioxidant Infusion Serum is designed to bring antioxidants deep into your skin to really harness their power and give your skin the protection and repair that it needs. Or, you might be seeing the effects of free radical damage in specific areas of your skin like around your eyes. If that’s the case, Peter Thomas Roth Vital-E Antioxidant Recovery Eye Cream is specifically designed for that vulnerable area.

Ultimately, you have to look for products that work for all of your skin’s needs, but if you want antioxidants, look for that word on the label and/or look for some of these ingredients:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin C
• Zinc
• Vitamin E
• Copper
• Selenium
• Polyphenols

Can Dietary Antioxidants Help Your Skin?

The wonderful things antioxidants do for your skin are just the tip of the iceberg, but there’s so much more below the surface (literally). Free radicals don’t just damage your skin, they can damage your other organs and body systems too, and incorporating more antioxidants into your diet will help. But what many people ask is, do the antioxidants in your food help your skin?

The answer is yes, they absolutely can supplement the antioxidants in your skin care. To take in more antioxidants, work in these antioxidant-rich foods:

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Berries
• Coffee
• Green tea
• Chocolate, especially if it has a high cacao content like dark chocolate
• Red wine

Giving Your Skin Protection and Restoration with Antioxidants

Look at you, brainiac! Antioxidant doesn’t just have to be a word you vaguely recognize anymore – now you know how they work and why your skin loves them. And just as importantly, you know where to get them. So stock up on topical antioxidants and give your skin the free radical-fighting army it deserves.