Your skin needs anti-oxidants, too.
Anti-oxidants, commonly found in fruits and vegetables, serve to protect and enhance your skin by shielding the damaging action of free-radicals. Free-radicals are highly unstable molecules that yearn for stability and their quest for this leaves a destructive path in normally-healthy cells and tissues. This disrupts many normal mechanisms, including cell-repair and inflammation. In the skin, this increases the risk for acne, wrinkling, and changes in pigmentation. The body naturally produces free-radicals, but environmental factors such as sunlight, tobacco, alcohol consumption, toxins, and stress worsen the situation.
The bad news is that free-radicals will always prevail. Good news, though, is that there are effective ways to maximize anti-oxidant levels. One way is by taking an oral anti-oxidant such as Vitamin C8 by New Roots Herbal, which offers wide-spread systemic benefits in the body. An often-neglected method of supplementation is that of topical anti-oxidants. Examples include various combinations of Vitamin C (the most well studied), Vitamin E, Vitamin A (“Retinol”, which penetrates well due to small molecular size), Vitamin B3 (“Niacinamide”), CoEnzyme Q10, and Resveratrol (eg. from skin of grapes and berries). As always, not all anti-oxidants are created equal. To make matters worse, anti-oxidants are quite unstable on their own. Thus, it is important to find companies that make quality, trustworthy products, especially when looking for something to put on your skin or ingest into your body.
The Vancouver-based Riversol line of skin-care is created by Dr. Jason Rivers. The unique line contains anti-oxidants such as beta-thujaplicin or “Beta-T” (from Pacific Red Cedar tree), Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Chrysin (mainly from passion flower), hesperidin methyl chalcone (from citrus and evening primrose), and propylene glycol alginate (jelly from sea algae), formulated to prevent and reverse signs of aging, such as pigmentation, thinning, and wrinkling of skin.
Viva is a company based in Richmond, BC, and their products are made inhouse in their Richmond facilities. Their Concentrated Antioxidant Serum contains natural anti-oxidants such as CoEnzyme Q10, mandarin orange oil, and oils from floral sources, such as wild rose, sunflower, and lavender. Chemist and co-founder, Jimmy, ensures that all his formulations are free of synthetic preservatives. The ingredients are also sustainably-sourced directly from farmers. In addition, Viva’s line offers better hydration than other oil-based skin-care products due to the unique filter spin system designed and perfected by co-founder, Jimmy, which allows the products to carry the ingredients deeper into the skin, while leaving the skin feeling silky and soft.
Come chat with the integrative pharmacists at Pharmasave Steveston Village and Cloverdale Pharmasave to see the most appropriate forms of anti-oxidant supplementation for you.
Fred Cheng and Christine Cheng are passionate sibling pharmacists at their integrative pharmacies located in Steveston Village and Cloverdale.
