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Manager: Just wear it.
Michelle: But why?
Manager: You're a scientist. Try to look like one.
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Michelle: It's really hot! And not all scientists wear lab coats anyway.
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Manager: How do you expect people to trust you if you're not wearing a lab coat?
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Michelle: Well people can listen to what I'm saying and
use their critical thinking skills to work out whether or
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not what I'm saying makes sense...
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Michelle: OK fine. [whining noises]
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It's Michelle from Lab Muffin Beauty Science here, chemistry PhD and
hyperpigmentation prone skin care nerd
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Today I'm going to be talking about how
to make your own DIY vitamin C serum
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that will actually work if you like this
sort of video give it a thumbs up
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subscribe to my channel and click the
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any videos
What does vitamin C do? I've
talked about vitamin C before in my
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video on hyperpigmentation. Vitamin C is
a superstar anti-aging ingredient
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vitamin C acts as an antioxidant which
means that it soaks up free radical
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damage this can happen as a result of UV
exposure, pollution or just natural aging
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I have a video that talks a bit more
about how antioxidants work it also
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fades hyperpigmentation such as the
brown spots that you might sometimes get
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on your skin after acne as well as sun
spots but the big problem with vitamin C
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is that it tends to be really unstable
this is especially the case with
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L-ascorbic acid the main type of vitamin
C that's been shown to work in anti
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aging products when L-ascorbic acid is
in a water-based product it tends to
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decompose really easily it turns into
yellow dehydroascorbic acid DHAA or DHA
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and other products really quickly at 25
degrees in pH 3.5 in amber glass which
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is light protective about 50% is gone in
a week DHA can convert back into
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l-ascorbic acid on your skin and there's
no good evidence that it's bad for your
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skin but there's not really much
evidence that it's good for your skin
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either and it can turn it to other
products too you can stabilize
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L-ascorbic acid by combining it with
some other ingredients a lot of products
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take this approach they usually combine
it with vitamin E
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and ferulic acid this is done in a
lot of popular vitamin C serums such as
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the ones from skinceuticals Paula's
Choice timeless and drunk elephant but
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if you want to DIY this combo then it's a
bit more of a hassle you'll have to buy
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extra vitamin E and ferulic plus
vitamin E doesn't dissolve well in water
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that means that you'll have to use an
emulsifier so that will sit well with
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your water-based vitamin C if you've
gone to this trouble then on top of that
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you'll probably also want to use a
preservative so that you can keep the
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serum for a longer time the price of all
these ingredients can add up quickly and
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if you've ever done any DIY before
you'll probably know that you end up
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accumulating lots of ingredients that
you never quite use up if you do want to
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go down this more complicated route then
holy snails has a nice recipe which I'll
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link to in the description you can also
stabilize L-ascorbic acid by changing
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its structure so turning it into a
derivative some examples of these
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derivatives are magnesium ascorbyl
phosphate ascorbyl tetraisopalmitate
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or ATIP and tetrahexyldecyl
ascorbate or THDA however these tend to
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be quite expensive compared to plain
L-ascorbic acid plus it's not well
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established how well these convert back
into L-ascorbic acid in your skin so
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that's why I think a simple DIY vitamin
C serum that you remake every week or so
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is a nice solution to some of these
problems I generally find DIY a bit of a
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pain you have to buy all these
ingredients you have to mix them
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together you have to play around with
the formula and there's all this washing
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up that you generally have to do
afterwards but this DIY serum doesn't
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have a lot of these drawbacks all the
ingredients are quite easy to get and
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inexpensive it only takes about five
minutes to make it once you get the
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hang of it you also have a better idea
of how fresh it is compared to a
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store-bought product you don't have to
think about how long it's been sitting
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on the shelf
how long the delivery is whether it's
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gone through any massive temperature
fluctuations while it's sitting in water
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you can also easily adjust the amount of
vitamin C in your serum you can just add
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a bit more or a bit less L-ascorbic acid
if you want more effectiveness or less
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irritation it's also cheap enough that I
can use it on other parts of my body
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without feeling bad about using an
expensive product to make a vitamin C
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serum which matches what's been used in
studies that have found positive effects
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you want something that's generally
between 5 and 20 percent at a pH of
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about 3.5 so here's what you need for
this DIY vitamin C serum first you need
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L-ascorbic acid powder as a dry solid
L-ascorbic acid is reasonably stable and
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cheap you can find this at most
supplement stores or you can order it
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off iHerb like I did there are also
lots of options on Amazon you also want
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some distilled or deionized water metal
ions in your water can speed up how
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quickly L-ascorbic acid decomposes you
can also use tap water and just make
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sure you remake your serum more
frequently you'll also need some baking
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soda the pH of L-ascorbic acid by itself
in water is going to be a bit too low
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it's a bit too acidic which means that
it will cause unnecessary irritation
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baking soda is alkaline which is the
opposite of this and so we can use it to
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adjust the pH back up closer to skin pH
you'll also need some pH strips it
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doesn't need to be really really precise
so any indicator strips should work I
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generally prefer four-square indicator
strips so I don't have to second-guess my
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color matching abilities you'll also
want a quarter teaspoon measuring spoon
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a quarter teaspoon
translates to about one and a half grams
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of ascorbic acid but it does depend on
your particular powder ideally if you
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weigh it out it's a bit more accurate
but because there's so much leeway in
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the percentage of vitamin C that we can
use in this serum then it isn't a
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massive issue for this specific recipe
of course you'll also need a suitable
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container to store your vitamin C serum
you want an airtight ish clean container
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it doesn't have to be truly airtight
because you'll be remaking this quite
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frequently if you have an old container
you can clean and reuse that you can
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also use some aluminium foil to protect
your vitamin C serum from light so
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here's how you make your DIY serum your
first step is to work out your recipe
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start by working out how much serum you
can fit into your container in
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milliliters you should be able to find
this out from the place you bought the
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bottle from or from the packaging if
it's a reused container if you can't
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work it out you can use a teaspoon and
measure how many teaspoons you can fit
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into your container next you need to
calculate how much L-ascorbic acid you
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need you divide the percentage you want
by a hundred then multiply it by the
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volume of the container and that will
give you the mass of L-ascorbic acid you
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need in grams for example if I'm making
20 mL of a 10% L-ascorbic acid I'm
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going to need two grams next you need to
clean your container
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I recommend washing it out thoroughly
with soap and water then rinsing it with
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alcohol a few times then rinsing it with
distilled water and letting it dry it
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doesn't have to be completely sterile
because again we're going to be remaking
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this quite frequently plus it's a quite
a low pH which microbes will have a hard
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time surviving in then you put your
L-ascorbic acid into your container
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add about half of the distilled water
that you're going to use into the
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container and shake it until it
dissolves we're only using half of the
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water at this stage because it's a lot
easier to shake a container that's not
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completely full then you add the rest of
the water and turn it upside down a few
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times to make sure it's thoroughly mixed
next we need to adjust the pH put a drop
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of the serum on to your pH strip and
look at what the pH is
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then add a tiny bit of baking soda
recheck the pH and keep doing this until
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you get it through somewhere between
three and four
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finally you can wrap your container up
in foil to protect it from light this
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is the easiest and cheapest way of
protecting something from light and so
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this will slow down how quickly your
vitamin C serum decomposes with light
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protection I found that this DIY serum
lasts about one week before going a
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little bit yellow and then two weeks
before it goes really yellow the pH is
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low enough that microbial growth
shouldn't be a big issue and you're not
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keeping up for very long once you're
used to this process
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it probably takes less than five minutes
to remake so even someone who's pretty
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lazy like me can remake up quite
frequently I hope you enjoyed this video
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and found it useful if you do click the
like button and subscribe to my channel
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you can also follow me on Instagram at
lab muffin beauty science and check
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out my blog for more nerdy beauty
science see you next time
00:08:31
Manager: Are you a scientist or a scientisn't?
Michelle: I am SO SWEATY
