Ferulic Acid Benefits: Benefits for Your Skin
Ferulic acid is one of the most common facial skincare and cleanser ingredients on the market today, but most people don't know what it does or how it helps. After all, won’t acid irritate your skin and make it drier than usual?
In truth, ferulic acid can provide many benefits, especially if applied with other important vitamins. Let’s break down several key benefits ferulic acid may provide to your skin one by one.
What Is Ferulic Acid?
In brief, ferulic acid is an antioxidant, similar to vitamin C. This plant-based antioxidant ingredient is commonly used in skin products geared towards fine lines and wrinkles, but it can also be found in cleansers. You can even get some ferulic acid from your diet thanks to foods like rice, oats, citrus fruits, and eggplant.
Ferulic acid can also be found in once-a-day vitamins, targeted supplements, and even certain skincare creams. For reasons discussed below, you'll often find ferulic acid provided alongside vitamins C and E.
As an antioxidant, ferulic acid primarily neutralizes free radicals. Free radicals are imbalanced molecules that lack or have an extra electron. Because of this electron imbalance and the interactions it leads to, free radicals can cause tissue damage, oxidative stress, and various other negative effects.
Antioxidants like ferulic acid can neutralize free radicals by donating or taking an electron, stabilizing the free radical molecules and resulting in a healthier skin environment overall.
Hope Health’s Nourish skin serum contains ferulic acid alongside vitamins B, C, and E for the ultimate antioxidant boost. This serum works to combat signs of aging while deeply nourishing the skin to improve brightness and firmness.
What Are Some Benefits of Ferulic Acid?
Let’s take a closer look at some specific potential benefits of ferulic acid so you know why you should target it in your face serums and cleansers.
Boosted Vitamin C and Vitamin E Efficacy
Perhaps most importantly, ferulic acid works very well when combined with vitamins C and E. Vitamins C and E are antioxidants, and these ingredients can help significantly reduce free radical presence in your skin or elsewhere.
More specifically, vitamin C is one of the most common antiaging skincare ingredients. However, vitamin C isn’t particularly stable because of its molecular structure. It can degrade very quickly, particularly if it’s exposed to sunlight.
However, when combined with ferulic acid, vitamin C becomes much more stable and lasts for longer. This, in turn, allows your body to take advantage of more vitamin C in a tablet, skincare cream, or other medium. You can think of ferulic acid as a sort of "super antioxidant" that gets most of its power from being used with other, similarly effective ingredients and skincare products.
Supports SPF Efficacy
Some studies indicate that ferulic acid could make your sunscreen work even better. When added to sunscreen formulas, ferulic acid may help improve and support the sun protection factor and could even support your skin and protect it from swelling and irritation.
For this reason, you can sometimes find ferulic acid in high-quality sunscreen products. Ferulic acid helps nourish your skin and protect it against environmental stressors.
Reduced Appearance of Fine Lines and Wrinkles
There’s also some evidence that ferulic acid may help reduce some of the signs of aging, like wrinkle formation or sagging skin. By defending your skin from free radicals and sun damage, ferulic acid may also help support your skin’s durability against these common toxins or stressors.
While ferulic acid can’t remove wrinkles or eliminate the signs of aging altogether, using ferulic acid products could help your skin look and feel younger for longer. That’s doubly true if you maintain a good skincare routine overall and keep your skin properly protected and moisturized.
Reduced Appearance of Hyperpigmentation
In addition to the other benefits, ferulic acid may help reduce the appearance of pigmentation problems, such as the formation of brown spots, uneven skin tone from redness, or even dark spots from pimples. Ferulic acid can help soothe your skin to help it return to its normal state, even after irritation.
When used on skin suffering from hyperpigmentation, ferulic acid could help to even out the appearance of your skin tone. Ferulic acid may help birghten the appearance of your skin, making it look more youthful.
This effect is similar to the brightening you’ll see when you exfoliate your facial skin — by stimulating blood flow, your skin may appear more radiant than before. Because of this benefit, a ferulic acid facial serum could be beneficial for use after exfoliating with a physical or chemical product.
Where Should I Look for Ferulic Acid?
Given ferulic acid's many potential benefits, there's no reason not to incorporate it into your skincare routine. Fortunately, ferulic acid is found in many common skincare products, including:
- Facial cleansers. Cleansers are the first products you should use during a skincare routine, as they clear away dirt and debris from your skin’s pores.
- Facial serums. You should use serums after cleaning your skin but before moisturizing it. Face serums include many other ingredients and vitamins alongside ferulic acid, like vitamin C.
- Sunscreen. Sunscreen uses ferulic acid for the above-mentioned protection against UV radiation. However, some sunscreen products will use more or less ferulic acid depending on their other ingredient compositions. You should avoid sunscreen products that pair ferulic acid with other, more harsh ingredients, as this could irritate your skin or contribute to blocked pores.
All in all, it’s a good idea to review the ingredients for any skincare product you plan to incorporate into your regimen. However, don’t forget you’ll also get enough ferulic acid from your diet in some cases, or you can bolster your diet with the right adult multivitamin gummies or tablets. Some gummies come with extra ferulic acid, too.
Summary
Ferulic acid is a wonder ingredient – so look for it in your next skincare products! Ferulic acid can provide various benefits for your body, both inside and out — and our Organic Greens + Supplement can help you take your health one step further.
Packed with versatile and healthful organic ingredients like omega-3 fatty acids, super fruits and vegetables, and more, our supplement works to support your foundational wellness and bridge gaps in your diet.
Check out our online store today to supplement the rest of your body alongside your skin at the same time!
Sources:
Natural skin surface pH is on average below 5, which is beneficial for its resident flora | NCBI