On the first weekend of each month, this column becomes a place for beauty problem-solving. Readers email me or get in touch via Instagram (@laura_m_kennedy) with their questions, and I find the right expert to clear up the confusion. This week, we're looking at antioxidants. You'll hear this buzzword in lingo-saturated beauty "talk" from brands, journalists, and influencers. But what are antioxidants, and why should we be putting them on our skin?
To answer these questions I enlisted the help of skincare expert Jennifer Rock, founder of The Skin Nerd and the excellent Irish skincare brands Skingredients and The Cleanse Off Mitt. Rock is a multi-award-winning dermal facialist and tutor, and she knows skincare inside and out. With her signature clarity, she simplified antioxidants for those of us who are confused.
“Antioxidants are the underdog of the skincare world,” says Rock. “They are molecules which fight free radicals in your body. They exist naturally in fruit and vegetables, and we can apply them topically daily (which I recommend) in serums and SPFs.” That’s all well and good, you might think, but what are free radicals? According to Rock, they are “molecules with an unpaired electron, which means that they are unstable in our body. Free radicals desperately go searching for another electron to steal to stabilise themselves, and they go in like a bull in a china shop, causing damage in their wake.
“Life itself is a free-radical exposure site, and they reach us through pollution, the food we eat, what we drink and secondhand (and first-hand) smoking.” Free radicals are also “the natural result of specific chemical processes in our body, so even if you hid in a bunker, you’d still be producing free radicals yourself”.
Reducing damage
The benefit of antioxidants, Rock advises, is that they “provide these free radicals with an electron to pair with, stabilising them and reducing the damage they cause – the very damage that can cause our skin to age faster”. Skincare can thus help as “antioxidant serums, foods and supplements work to protect your skin from free-radical damage daily. In this, they’re working to reduce the damage that can cause deeper fine lines and wrinkles, pigmentation, lax skin, crepey and dehydrated skin.” Rock says that it’s easy to overlook antioxidant skincare “as they’re more of a preventative ingredient than a corrective”, so the results play out over years rather than showing immediately.
More than just giving errant electrons something productive to do, “antioxidants work to reduce inflammation too, so aside from the pro-ageing benefits, they are key for those who experience any redness or soreness in their skin, so those with rosacea, psoriasis and acne, for example”. I ask Rock how to identify antioxidants on an ingredients label. “Some of those considered most potent include vitamin A (retinol, retinyl palmitate, retinaldehyde, beta carotene and many others), vitamin E and precursors (tocopherol, pre-tocopheryl), green tea extract (camellia sinensis leaf extract), resveratrol (Japanese knotweed extract), liquorice root extract (glycyrrhiza glabra leaf extract) and many more.”
Antioxidant products to try
Skingredients Skin Protein (€42 at skingredients.com)
Ultraceuticals Ultra Protective Antioxidant Complex (€60 at ultraceuticals.com)
Image Vital C Hydrating Anti-Aging Serum 50ml (€76)
La Roche-Posay Anthelios Age Correct SPF50+ Cream (€29 at lookfantastic.com)
Product of the Week
KVD Vegan Beauty Good Apple Skin-Perfecting Foundation Balm (€36 at boots.ie from May)
