Novel Insights Into Ascorbic Acid Skin Permeation
July 2020
ascorbic acid vitamin C topical skincare time of flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry ToF-SIMS high performance liquid chromatography HPLC gel formulation caffeine ex vivo porcine skin tissue epidermis nanostructured lipid carrier NLC cream formulation stratum corneum corneocytes gel skin tissue cream
TLDR The best way to apply vitamin C to the skin is with a nanostructured lipid carrier formulation.
In 2020, Jatin Mistry conducted a study on the skin permeation of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), a popular ingredient in topical skincare products. The research used imaging techniques, specifically time of flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to visualize and quantify the distribution of ascorbic acid in the skin. The study found that a gel formulation can slow the permeation of ascorbic acid but enhance the permeation of caffeine through ex vivo porcine skin tissue. The study also found that ascorbic acid and caffeine were primarily localized to the epidermis. In a comparison of nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) formulations and cream formulations, the cream delivered more ascorbic acid into the stratum corneum, but the ascorbic acid was mainly localized in the skin's furrows. The NLC formulation, however, distributed ascorbic acid more evenly over the corneocytes. The study concluded that the NLC formulation is the most suitable topical preparation for ascorbic acid.
