The Importance of Antioxidants and Peptides
You probably hear the terms antioxidants and peptides used in skincare quite often.
They are both very important to our skin's overall health but have different responsibilities for keeping our skin healthy and youthful. Let's take a look at what exactly an antioxidant and a peptide are and how they work, so we know how important it is to have them in our daily skin care regime.
To understand what a peptide is we first need to know what an amino acid is... An amino acid is an organic compound found all throughout the body. The body uses amino acids to build proteins which helps the body do all sorts of functions properly, in your skin it helps build proteins like collagen and elastic, which helps keep your skin strong and tight. They also help you reproduce your own antioxidants.
Amino acids are found naturally in your body but as we age they break down like anything else, therefore needing us to replace them and put more in. You can find amino acids in many beauty products, supplements and in your daily diet such as meat and dairy. Amino acids are a natural moisturising factor for the skin, making it play a very important role in ensuring our skin's youthfulness.
Each amino acid plays a specific function in our skin and is the building block of peptides. Peptides are a string of certain amino acids, depending on the function you are looking to achieve. As mentioned before amino acids build protein, well when you string them together to make peptides they are stronger and become little messengers that trigger your skin cells to perform the function needed such as building more collagen, keratin and elastin (which are all proteins). We want to keep building more protein in the skin to help us keep a firm and youthful complexion. Peptides also help with texture, strength and resilience of the skin. Our skin needs peptides to be able to function properly and keep the structure of our skin. Without them our skin will be less firm, loss of elasticity and more wrinkles will appear.
Now we know how to keep our skin youthful, we need to learn how to protect so that the peptides can do their job to the best of their ability. We do this by having as many antioxidants in our life as possible. Antioxidants are substances that help protect the skin from free radical damage. A free radical is a highly unstable reactive molecule, it tries to gain stability when it comes into contact with our skin by trying to break down the healthy skin cells and proteins such as collagen and elastic, the two important proteins we want to stay strong to keep our skin youthful. Free radicals come from pollution and UV rays.
When we have antioxidants in and on our skin, they neutralise the free radical so they cannot cause damage. Antioxidants have other potent benefits other than protecting our skin. They are also known to be very anti-aging, and can help reduce sun spots and calm the skin of inflammations. Many antioxidants are very hydrating and will increase your moisture retention levels for a brighter skin complexion. You can find antioxidants in beauty products and supplements. Common forms of antioxidants are Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Retinol or Vitamin A, Resveratrol, Glutathione and Polyphenols. Foods that are high in antioxidants are blueberries, broccoli, flaxseed, spinach, carrots and potatoes.
It is always important to help our skin from the inside out. Antioxidants and peptides need to be in our daily skin regime to keep our skin strong and looking youthful for as long as possible without invasive intervention.
Love Beautology x