Vitamin E for skincare although might be quite common in today’s world as people are becoming quite aware of newly developed things and are more conscious about their skin and hair care, but the ultimate use of vitamin E for skin care might not be known by many of us.
And thus we come here today to inform you about Vitamin E and its uses for skin care. With rising concerning among men and women regarding their skin and hair, people eventually start indulging into everything that seems new to them.
But the real question is if it at all works?
Vitamins and minerals, in general, are known to be essential factors for a healthy lifestyle, and their benefits are diverse in nature. Among most of the Vitamins that are used for skin and hair care, Vitamin E is by far the most commonly advised supplement for skincare.
But just knowing the gist of it isn’t vital, knowing how it works and how to use vitamin E for skin care is equally important. In this article, we have bought to you the everlasting questions that might bug you regarding the use of Vitamin E.
I have listed down the highlights of the entire article so that you can browse accordingly.
- What is Vitamin E?
- Sources of Vitamin E
- Vitamin E benefits for skin
- Uses of Vitamin E for skin
- Take away note
So, starting with the fundamental question
What is Vitamin E?
Vitamins, in general, are essential components and nutrients that our body requires for the proper functioning of our body. There are about 13 essential vitamins, out of which Vitamin E is one of the most important ones.
Vitamin E can be easily obtained from the food that we eat, and sometimes they are added to some food elements as well to increase their nutritional values.
Nowadays Vitamin E are used not only as a dietary supplement but also are highly incorporated in various skin care products, researchers and scientists have discovered the importance and use of Vitamin E in our skin care and its benefits have been one of the important discoveries for the cosmetic sector.
Vitamin E is mostly plant-based oils that are extracted from plants with nuts, seeds, fruits, etc. They are essentially extracted from these plants and their products by various processes such as supercritical fluid extraction, Solvent extraction, etc. [1].
There are other benefits of Vitamin E that our body needs on a common purpose such as an increase in our immune system, cell regeneration and also anti-oxidant activity. The use of Vitamin E has become so much appealing nowadays that its inevitable.
SOURCES OF VITAMIN E
There are various ways Vitamin E can be incorporated in our lifestyle. Here I have tried to list down the different method by which Vitamin E can be found naturally or supplementary in our surrounding. One can use any one means or source of Vitamin E for skin care.
- Food: Getting Vitamin E in earlier days were most easy cause the most potent and available form of Vitamin E would be in the fruits and vegetables that you eat.
Food is the natural way of incorporating Vitamin E in your life, given the fact that you consume the right fruits or vegetable that has a lot of Vitamin E.
Few of the most common food stuffed with Vitamin E foods are peanuts, almonds, sunflower oil, corn, soybean, berries, wheat grains, leafy vegetables, nuts.
- Supplements- There are food supplements and also skin care supplements that are nowadays available in the market for ready to use purpose, Vitamin E food supplements are used primarily for health and nutrition. In contrast, vitamin E supplements that are for skin care are more in the form of oil-based in a capsulated form.
- Vitamin E oil for skin: Vitamin E oils are also one of the most used and popularly known forms of Vitamin E, the use of Vitamin E oil for skincare has been long known and are well added in one’s routine. Doctors have also build up the use of Vitamin E oil as one of the easiest ways of taking care of one’s skin. Popular cosmetic and skin care brands are also investing in producing Vitamin E oil for skin and body.
- Vitamin E creams: Topical application of Vitamin E are also well known for skin care at least, various creams are now available in the market with Vitamin E in it for better topical use.
Cosmetics products such as anti-ageing creams, under eye creams and even makeup have added Vitamin E to put in the benefits of Vitamin in your skin.
Sometimes oil can be too heavy to be used for skin care purpose, and there comes the use of these gels and creams of Vitamin E for skin that gets absorbed much more quickly than most of the other products.
Vitamin E benefits for skin
So what does Vitamin E do to your skin? One of the most essential topics of this article being the benefits that Vitamin E has on our skin, so let’s just dive into it.
ANTI-AGEING PROPERTIES
Vitamin E are best known for its anti-ageing properties. There are chemical compounds in Vitamin E that helps fighting care problems and helps to reduce the fine lines and wrinkles on regular usage.
Studies have talked on great length on how compounds like Tocopherols in Vitamin E are active compounds that help in fighting ageing or at least delays ageing process.
One study in 1995 explained how Vitamin E is used for damaged skin and cells; its repair mechanism helps in keeping the skin cells healthier and also helps in removing non-wanted elements[2].
ANTI-OXIDANT PROPERTIES
Vitamin E for skin also helps in fighting the free radicles that are produced by our body, these radicles are said to be toxic for our cell, and their health are in fact also known to be one of the significant reasons of ageing.
The role of antioxidants in your skin can be terrifying and effects cell life. Thus doctors are recommending various anti-oxidant elements for preventing this rate of cell damage that can lead to wrinkles and pigmentation as well[3].
Vitamin E is one of those forms of anti-oxidants that helps in preventing the damage caused to the skin by scavenging free radicles that are formed[4].
Helps to deal with Hyperpigmentation
Studies have suggested that the use of Vitamin E or Vitamin E for skin care can help to reduce Hyperpigmentation.
Some studies say how UV rays are one of the leading causes of Hyperpigmentation and can affect our skins due to excessive sun exposure. Extensive exposure can cause photoaging as well and mottled pigmentation can be tackled by Vitamin E introduction[5].
Wound healing
Vitamin E has remarkable wound healing properties as well; various skin lesions can be healed with the use of Vitamin E.
Having said so, there have been fewer studies regarding the same, but few studies do support the evidence of using Vitamin E for various cutaneous wounds and its healing process[6].
Other potential benefits of Vitamin E for skin
May help in preventing skin cancer
Reduces skin problems such as Eczema and Psoriasis[7]More studies on the same needs to be done for further information about Vitamin E’s effect on cancer and Psoriasis.
USES OF VITAMIN E FOR SKIN
There are various ways of using Vitamin E for skin care, especially after knowing what Vitamin E does for our skin it becomes quite essential to know its uses and the ways to incorporate it in our skin care regime.
Here are a few of the ways you can use various forms of vitamin E sources for your skin.
Vitamin E oil for skin
Vitamin E oil for skin benefits has been well discussed now in order to use it; one has to know their skin type first, as most of the oils are dense in nature, it has the possibilities to clog your pores, and thus knowing your skin type can help you use it accordingly.
If you are dry to combination skin type, then the uses listed below can help you tremendously, if you are oily skin you can use vitamin E oil but in small amounts.
- Use it as a spot treatment: Vitamin E oils can be used as an acne treatment, due to their healing properties.
- Use it for making homemade facial masks- add drops of vitamin E oil along with few other serums and rose water and put it on a mask for it to soak and place it on your face.
- Use it with makeup: adding vitamin E oils with your foundation will help you give a glow texture on your skin that shows off the healthy skin and also nourishes your skin.
- Add it with night creams: Although nowadays there are various products available in the market that has vitamin E infused in it, if you are into DIYs then add some Vitamin E oil with your aloe vera gel and use it as a night cream.
Vitamin E capsules
Description: Use of Vitamin E capsules as a lip balm helps in softening the lip and prevents cracking of lips.
- The vitamin E capsules can be used to add in various lip balms to soften your lips.
- Vitamin E capsules are best to use for skin and hair care by adding some other oils in it, such as neem oil or coconut oil.
- Pop the Vitamin E capsule and use it for treating stretch marks, if you don’t know how to deal with stretch marks due to weight loss, then this is one of the most effective solutions.
- Use it for sunburns.
- Use it as a cleansing agent: oil or any form acts as an excellent way to get rid of dirt and impurities; thus Vitamin E oil will not only help you get rid of dirt but also give some oil balance in your skin keeping it supple. Vitamin E and coconut oil for skin is the right combination for cleansing.
The Vitamin E supplements that are taken orally also do well for your skin. Still, its effects take a long time, and if you are looking for only skincare then using topical based products would be beneficial than orally digesting it, but if you are more into your overall health then incorporating fruits and vegetable or supplements of Vitamin E will benefit your entire body health.
PRECAUTION
- Although there is no particular dosage of Vitamin E uptake too much oral digestion of Vitamin E can also lead to complications as it gets stored in our fat cells and may even cause blood clotting problems. RDA has listed the upper limit of Vitamin E as 15mg/day for people above 19 yrs. older[8].
- Overnight application of too much Vitamin E oil can also cause pore clotting problems; thus, the amount of usage has to be monitored [9].
- Some Vitamin E oral supplements may interact with some of your other medications especially in case of people suffering from cancer, cholesterol or if you’re pregnant, thus it’s suggested to consult your doctor before any use[10].
Other ways to help with skin health:
- Use of other Vitamin and minerals such as Vitamin C for skincare
- Use of essential oils: use of tea tree oil, lavender essential oil, lemon essential oil, etc.
- Use of aloe vera for skin
- Use of almond oil and coconut oil.
Take away note
Even though there are certain conflicting notions of the benefits of Vitamin E, most of them are considered as pure evidence. They are thus allowed to be used orally as well as topically. Still, if someone does hesitate on its usage, then you should probably consider going to some professionals for further clarification on its use.
Most of the Vitamin E are available in the most natural form in the vegetables and fruits; thus the proper intake of these would do good to your health as well as skin, but now with the advancement of medicine we do have oral supplements of the same as well, which will help you nourish your skin.
Use of Vitamin E for skin has shown tremendous result for most of us so what seeping you from using this miracle compound, make use of it as soon as possible.
