N, yes, sometimes the vitamin C touted on the packaging does come from plant extracts. But unless that’s at the top of the list, you won’t get too much vitamin C. Personally, I don’t like neither Nivea or L’Oreal because I find their products too basic. If you want to stick to drugstore skincare, Olay is a much better option as they tend to use a higher amount of antioxidants and good preservative systems/packaging that keep the antioxidants stable for longer. But of course, you want to use anything with antioxidants as soon as possible.

Thanks for replying, Gio. I could’ve phrased my comment a bit more clearly! I meant to use the Olay and L’Oreal Paris products as examples of face cream/ sunscreen which have or claim to have some antioxidant ingredients/ complexes, but where we can’t tell how much or how effective. I use both and quite like Olay products.

The Nivea one I mentioned is a budget body lotion that I came across while looking for body products with antioxidants in general and vitamin C in particular. It *claims* to have a lot of vitamin C. However, I’m not sure how unless it’s from the Camu Camu and Acerola Cherry juices it contains.

Shipping products from other countries is expensive even when possible, so I’m trying to find sensible budget products here in India. This is where it gets tricky to figure things out; I know antioxidants are hard to stabilise, so how are so many companies using them in water-based formulas and keeping them stable?

In a situation like this, the end user has little apart from the company’s claims to go by. Most people cannot spend too much time and money on figuring out and choosing skin products. The lack of integrity and transparency in product claims just makes things harder.

N, I understand your frustration! When I was living in Italy I had access to very few brands and they had none of the good stuff I wanted. I had to do most of my shopping online. A lot of brands ship worldwide these days, maybe you can look into that? May I ask where are you based? Olay is one of the best brands at the drugstore so I’d definitely go with that one instead of Nivea.

If Sodium Ascorbic Phosphate isn’t one of the top 5 ingredients, don’t bother. And if you don’t understand a claim a brand makes, 99% of the time that’s because it’s marketing nonsense. Just ignore what the labels say and look for products with as many antioxidants as possible. 🙂

It bums me out to read about the benefits of antioxidants for the skin because well-formulated antioxidant products are hard to come by in my country, especially at a price I can afford. I’ve to rely on whatever companies put in affordable products.

For example, Olay’s Total Effects and Regenerist lines have green tea and vitamin E in them, even though they cost a fair bit in our currency. L’Oreal has a sunscreen range (UV Perfect, not sure if this is available in Europe, since it seems to made in and for Asia) which claims to have some anti-pollution and antioxidant ingredients, but they just use descriptions like “powerful antioxidant complex”. I suspect it might be “Vitreoscilla Ferment”, but I can’t be sure. With other formulas that use such “complexes”, it’s hard for a layperson to tell if they’re actually effective or not.

To use another example of claims that are hard to assess, Nivea claims 40X and 50X vitamin C (don’t know compared to what!) for some of their body lotions, but Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate is quite far down on the ingredient list. What is high up are several types of fruit juices and herbal extracts.

(I could share ingredient lists if you’re curious about what kind of product formulations companies sell in other countries.)

Hi Alan,

I wouldn’t mix them together but you can definitely use the Paula’s Choice serum first and follow up with the Olay serum. Or you can use one in the morning and the other at night if you want to make your skincare routine shorter.

Antioxidants neutralise the free radicals that cause wrinkles. Peptides have different jobs. Some tell the skin to produce more collagen, other soothe inflammation, and others hydrate skin. While there are many independent studies that prove antioxidants work, almost of all the studies on peptides are done by the manufacturers. That doesn’t mean they don’t work but it’s still best to take them with a pinch of salt. My stance is that, if a product contain antioxidants/glycolic acid/niacinamide (ingredients proven to work) + peptides, awesome! But I wouldn’t splurge on a serum just because it has peptides.

As for they Dr Denese Serum, yes, you can use that together with the antioxidant serum. Just apply the one with the lighter texture first.