Today I worked on expt #3 of a vitamin C serum. Vitamin C is known to induce the formation of collagen in your skin, the loss of which is partly the cause of age related wrinkles. Ascorbic acid (as L-Ascorbic acid) is unstable however, in the presence of water and light, so each prep should be kept in a dark bottle, and not used for more than a week or 2. Once it starts turning yellowish, it has begun oxidizing and is then BAD for your skin.
I bought a bag of the stuff, so I am not concerned about running out. My first experiment was done with a "whole food Vitamin C" . There was no mention of "ascorbic acid" anywhere on the bottle, but I tried it anyway. It was already brown colored, and there must have been sugar of some kind in it because it felt kind of sticky on my face. it was not comfortable. It also turned gloppy once I added the glycerin, so there was some sort of unintended reaction going on there.
Experiment 2 was with the bag I now have. I noticed that the crystals did not want to dissolve well, so I couldn't get the 20% concentration I wanted (although I've read collagen formation can occur at 10% too).
Today I pulverized about 3 TBSPs into a powder and placed it into one of my face cream jars. (That way I also am not dipping into the main bag every 2 weeks). My vitamin C dissolved beautifully into the distilled water. SO, I used 1/4 tsp Vitamin C, 1/2 tsp each of distilled water followed by 1/2 tsp vegetable glycerin. By volume, that equates to 1 part Vitamin C in a total of 5 parts. This is a 20% solution. It didn't irritate the back of my hands, so I decided it was safe to use on my face.
Oh , the last thing I need to check is the pH...the lower the number, the more acidic a solution is. I have read that to be effective, a vitamin C serum should have a pH of between 2.5-3.5. I am waiting for my pH paper to arrive, and will check that when it arrives.
(see blog post of 12 Jul 2014 for an update on the Vitamin C Serum!)