Do it yourself home made Vitamin C skin brightening facial serum

<<<<<<THIS IS AN OLD FORMULA. PLEASE READ MY UPDATED VERSION OF DIY VIT C SERUM CLICK HERE >>>>>
 
Intro...

I have extremely oily skin, which means I could get away with without using any moisturizer most of the times. Even now, some of my most fav. make-up pros (including  GOSS Make Up Artist , one of my most fav make-up gurus, if you don’t know him I suggest you check his videos out now, you will thank me later) say people with oily skin does not need any moisturizer…that being said, I like the feeling/smell/texture of a moisturizer, I like putting it on my face and I like the things it does to my skin, specially during the winter. So I have been using some lately…

Anyway you may ask why am I babbling about moisturizer if I was going to make a serum? It’s because to know what facial serum does, you need to know the basic. What is a moisturizer? What is a serum? What is the difference?

Why Serum?

Simply, moisturizer is a barrier between skin and the environment; it can trap the moisture in your skin which will keep it from getting dry hence getting wrinkles and ensuring overall healthy skin. However our skin has different layers and the molecules of a moisturizer can only penetrates the outermost layer, which many specialists refers to as superficial layer, because eventually the skin cells shed and this layer becomes extinct. So if you want to really do something to your skin, you will need to penetrate deeper.

Enter second layer. I knew the name of all these layers but I forgot…anyway here comes the serum. The molecules of a serum are smaller than moisturizer therefore can penetrate deeper into skin (which moisturizer can’t, remember?) therefore if you are trying to improve your skin you should concentrate on a serum as well as a moisturizer.

Now I don’t want to get into any details but if you are interested check this link which discusses skin serum & moisturizer and their correlations.

Problems with buying Serum

So after reading all these I wanted to try a serum but all I could find was some hydrating and anti aging ones. Now as I said before, I have oily skin, extra hydration is not my top priority right now. I am still in my 20’s therefore anti-aging is also not my thing. I wanted some skin purifying or brightening serums but couldn’t find them locally. I tried all the super stores and some expensive dispensaries but no luck. I would have given up and bought myself hydrating serum just to see what the buzz was all about …they are really damn expensive (about 2k for some tiny bottle) but I would still buy one, because I’m impulsive, if I had not come across this make up alley DIY serum review.

Home Made DIY Serum 

Now a word about Make-Up Alley, that is, IT SAVED MY LIFE. I was just a clueless girl who suffered from extremely oily skin and was totally clueless about products and make-ups and this website helped me to do a complete 360 degree. More about that later…

So here is the link for MUAserum

There is a lot of scientific mumbojumbo but don’t worry, all they mean is you need vitamin C and something to dilute it in, water/glycerin etc and maybe some vitamin E for extra care.

 Sounds simple right? But where do you find vitamin C? They are in citric fruits but the concentration you need (like 5 or 10%) will not be enough for fruits. For example, from one lemon you will get only 5% vitamin C or ascorbic acid as they are called scientifically.  You can’t never really put all of it at once on your face…you get the problem.

People in MUA use powder form pure Ascorbic acid but here in Bangladesh you cant find them. I though of importing but then again it is very sensitive to heat and sunlight so probably not a good idea…so I kept searching until I found some other interested party, a blogger from India, who suffered from the same unavailablity issues and later resorted to using edible vitamin C! Although some other sites warned against putting vitamin C tablets in your skin, she has had positive result and frankly I’m with her in that. If something’s good enough to eat, it’s okay for skin. The most it might have is sugar which has always been good to my skin…so anyway check her post here..

So I went to bddrugs to see which vitamin C capsule I should order where I found another option. Ampoules. Really. It is liquid vitamin C, it does not have any thickening agent (which was my main worry about pills, you know, the medicine needs to be concentrated so they would obviously apply some sort of thickening agent to the pills which I would very much like to avoid putting on my skin).

My DIY Vitamin C Serum

So with the help of all those…I finally managed to put on a recipe for my own homemade Do It Yourself facial serum.

1. One ampoule 100 mg Ascoson ascorbic acid

2. One 400 mg Evit Vitamin E capsule

3. 1 teaspoon of almond oil ( MUA suggests glycerin, but I have oily skin, glycerin clogs pore, almond oil doesn’t beside I have an unused bottle of almond oil laying around and most importantly almond oil can penetrate second layer of the skin (don’t tell me you already forgot, its important that you understand), it is called a carrier oil, thus it will take vitamin C and vitamin E deeper into the skin which glycerin or water couldn’t)

4. Two leaves worth of aleovera gel (just because I love them my skin loves them …and also so that the concentration doesn’t get very oily) acquires about 4 tablespoon of gel. Alternatively you can use 4 table-spoon of water or water based lotion/cream/moisturizer.

Step 1: acquire aloe Vera gel from aloe Vera leaves ( I didn’t bother taking pictures, the whole thing is pretty messy as it is, if you don’t know how to do it, watch this video) if you don’t have aloe vera gel, use 4 tablespoon of water.

Step 2: Take aleovera gel/water in the smallest food processor container you have got ( I have one only to make face masks and stuff, make sure you don’t use it to do anything else, specially grounding spice or coffee/ nuts it will totally break the properties).

Step 3: break the ampoule and pour the content into the container. Break the capsules and do the same.

Step 4: blend low for 30 seconds

Step 5: your serum is ready, preserve it in a  a clean container, use you dropper to take some out (don’t use your finger, you may contaminate it), do a patch test on your feet, if no allergic reaction whatsoever use as a facial serum.

Refrigerate your serum and remember to finish it by seven days (or until vitamin C oxidizes, when it does your serum will turn brown, discard it and make a new batch)

How to use

Here is an article on how-to-use facial serums. Continuous use should produce positive results. Finger crossed! Next batch, I will decrease oil/aloe vera (increase the vitamin C% to 10-15 maybe, in this concentration its 5% but hey if its your first time you wouldn’t want to exceed 5% either) 
Very important tip: remember to use a sunscreen if you're using this serum

My Verdict:

I have only been using it for a few days.I mostly use it during night, after I've washed/toned my face, put the serum by lightly massaging face and neck, wait for 5 minutes to let it skin in, put on some night cream/moisturizer.  here's my observation so far
1. skin is so soft from the first use…
2. Even though its kind of oily, my skin didn't break out at all. I guess its because almond oil will not clog your pores (as opposed to glycerin which was mentioned in the original MUA tutorial)
3. It certainly has skin brightening properties...in only seven days my skin is looking brighter and some of my pimple marks i have is looking fayer... remember its scientifically proven that vitamin C can brighten your skin tone and remove suntan. Imagine what it will do given more time...fingers crossed!
4. No comment about the anti-aging properties...but according to MUA people have experienced that too.
5. It has a slight bleaching affect...my facial hairs are appearing lighter..ah added benefits.