INGREDIENT SPOTLIGHT:
FERULIC ACID

Meet Ferulic acid, the super-antioxidant you might not have heard about. Despite the term ‘acid’ typically having a negative connotation attached to it, Ferulic Acid is one skincare ingredient you shouldn’t fear and I’ll give you a hint why: it’s Vitamin E’s BFF.

Here’s the lowdown on ferulic acid, why Vitamin E loves it so much and why you need it in your skincare routine ASAP:

Ageing. It’s what’s happening to us with each passing moment, completely out of our control. It’s the natural process that millions of skincare products are designed to camouflage. And while there are ways to combat the signs of ageing, there’s no way to stop the clock on time itself.

A key reason as to why our skin ages is due to oxidative stress in the skin’s tissue, resulting in visible signs of ageing like age spots, wrinkles, dullness and loss of elasticity. We’ve explained more about this process in our article (which you can read here) so we won’t make you read it all again!

In short, you need antioxidants to counter the oxidants which will prematurely age your skin.

How powerful is Ferulic Acid?

In short, Ferulic Acid is one of the most powerful antioxidants out there. A 2004 Italian study concluded that ferulic acid is a more powerful antioxidant than Vitamin E, beta-carotene, and ascorbic acid.

At R¹⁰ Labs, we’ve always been a fan of antioxidants, we don’t exactly hide our passion. There isn’t just one type of free radical looking to cause havoc to your skin, there’s several and each antioxidant usually only destroys one or two of them.

So the more antioxidants you use, the more types of free radicals you can destroy. Ferulic acid unlike other antioxidants, goes the extra mile, it destroys three types: hydroxyl radical, superoxide, and nitric oxide – (that last one if it sounds familiar, was the pollutant at the heart of the Volkswagen-Audi Dieselgate scandal!)

Ferulic Acid’s turbo power

Not only is Ferulic acid super helpful to counter the pollution we encounter on a daily basis, it has an ace up it’s sleeves. Wanna know why Vitamin E & Ferulic acid are best buddies?

When combined with Vitamin E, both antioxidants make each other more effective, as noted by a study at Duke University – They boost one another’s antioxidant properties.

If you thought that’s it, there’s more. A 1999 study suggested that Ferulic acid + vitamin E can help treat hyperpigmentation and dark spots. Apparently, they suppress melanogenesis, possibly by inhibiting tyrosine hydroxylase activity in an indirect manner.”

In more layman terms, Ferulic acid when combined with Vitamin E prevents your skin from producing too much melanin, the pigment that gives skin it’s colour.