Antioxidents - What are they and why do we need them in our skincare?

This post is a big one so make a cup of tea and get comfy. I get asked a lot about antioxidants in skincare I'm going to talk about some specifically here and some more in depth in the future. You can also have a look at my What's In Your Products Page. I've tried to keep it the right side of technical. I think it's important to understand the science behind it without needing a chemistry degree (which I don't have... I scraped a C at GCSE). 

Antioxidants & Free Radicals
A lot of the antioxidants found in skincare are already present in the body, which naturally produces them, but the amounts will decrease as we age meaning we need to use them in our diet and skincare to give our bodies a boost. We know that a healthy diet should give our bodies antioxidants but very often our skin is the last organ to benefit and, as it is on the outside and we are able to, we should apply things topically. Sometimes our environment, poor lifestyle and diet mean the natural antioxidants get overwhelmed so it is great to give the body, and the skin as much help as we can.

Free radicals (and oxidative stress) are the biggest cause of early signs of ageing and these harmful cells cause lots of damage including attacking collagen cells - collagen makes our skin look plump and healthy. Oxidisation is what you see when an apple or avocado goes brown if left open to the air. This oxidisation is why these fruits have great antioxidant properties, often in their skins, as they've had to naturally develop them to protect themselves from the environment, unlike us they can't move out of the sun when they need to.