LAB NOTES & SAFETY NOTICE
These are personal experiments for educational use only— not instructions and not for commercial or consumer use. By proceeding, you assume all risks related to safety, testing, and regulatory compliance.
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Vitamin C is a very powerful substance and it is found in many commercial products for the skin because it is a strong antioxidant, it has lightening properties and, last but not least, it helps the production of collagen (therefore you are left with a firmer skin).
Vitamin C is “ascorbic acid” (you could also find “L-ascorbic acid”) but in the creams you buy, if you read the ingredients, you will never find “ascorbic acid”, probably you will find “sodium ascorbyl phosphate” or “magnesium ascorbyl phosphate” (there are also other forms of Vitamin C, this is a mere example). What is this?
Well, Vitamin C has great properties but it doesn’t keep stable: it oxidizes even in contact with air, with light… (this is why if you make fresh orange juice you should drink it immediately after), so in order to be able to add this vitamin in our face creams, cosmetologists use a stabilized form of Vit C: if in the ingredients of your cream you read an ingredient which contains the word “ascorbyl”, to make it very simple, that is the stabilized form of Vitamin C.
These stabilized forms are many and they are growing in number all the time. They are not something negative (and even I use them in the making of Vitamin C creams… maybe I will post a recipe soon about it 🙂 ), however their properties are not 100% the same of the pure Vitamin C.
Today I am going to show you how I make my own, and in my opinion most effective, VITAMIN C SERUM.
The only way to use pure Vitamin C (therefore “L-ascorbic acid”) effectively is to use it right away and make a new serum all the time.
This is why the recipe of today, unlike all the cream recipes I have shown before, is not in 100 gr but it is in very small amounts.
“FORMULA” (it is so simple I am not sure I can call it that 😀 )Â
(first part)
1 teaspoon demineralized purified waterÂ
1/8 teaspoon L-ascorbic acidÂ
Glycerin (a single drop)
I mix these two ingredients in a bowl and measure the pH
WARNING! Measuring the pH is important!
The reason why I measure the pH at this stage is because Ascorbic acid is obviously an acid (and it is also very strong) so you don’t want to apply on your skin something of pH 2… however Vitamin C is well absorbed (and used) in your skin only at a pH range of 3.5 or lower. Therefore I check the pH of the solution and if I see it lower than pH 3.5 I adjust the pH by adding a little bit more water. I keep checking the pH until it reaches 3.5 pH.
At this point I apply it to my face using a brush or even my fingers, and I keep applying even in multiple layers until the water is finished.
WARNING! I do not apply it to the eye area nor do I keep it on my skin too long. If it tingles I wash it off immediately.
The second part of the FORMULA is this:
2 drops of Vitamin E (Tocopheryl acetate or Tocopherol).
I put these two drops on my figers and tap my face, I let it it sit on my skin for 20 minutes and wash it off
This is my personal easiest, most effective Vitamin C serum. I use it once or twice a week, but only if I don’t go in the sun those days.
IT'S ALL IN MY HANDS 