If you ever considered getting serious with your skin care, chances are, your research at some point led you to glycolic acid. This magic charm of an ingredient is many times the main active ingredient in lots of ‘oh-it-really-works’ exfoliation and skin peel products. But, there’s actually much more under the hood, that you may find even more interesting about glycolic acid.
What’s glycolic acid
As the name suggests, it is an acid, belonging to a group called Alpha Hydroxyl Acids (AHA). Your skin may know a thing or two about this group, as they are popular as exfoliating agents in many ‘chemical exfoliation’ products on the market. If you’ve heard of citric acid, malic acid or lactic acid, that’s the group. Naturally, it’s present in a number of plants including sugarcane, sugar beets, pineapple, cantaloupe and unripe grapes.
How does glycolic acid work
Glycolic acid has about 3 unique effects on the skin, that together bring about that youthful look we all want.
Glycolic acid as an Exfoliant
Just like your hair and nails, the skin also undergoes growth and replacement. In simple terms, old skin cells get detached and new ones take their place. This is necessary because every day, your skin undergoes wear and tear, from several sources including UV radiation from the sun, contact damage, chemical damage, infections, etc. And there’s also the inbuilt senescence that comes with all living tissue. As we get older, the natural process of replacing old skin cells with new ones slows down. This means one thing – aged skin cells linger for longer on your skin, leading to all the tell-tale signs of aging skin – wrinkling, sagging, hyperpigmentation, etc. It also means that some way of helping the skin maintain its pace of dead cell removal is inevitably necessary if good-looking skin is a subject you cherish as you age. This is where glycolic acid comes in.
As a keratolytic agent – one that breaks the bonds that hold skin cells together, glycolic acid accelerates the speed at which the skin lets go of dead cells. With this effect, it removes this aged dull layer of skin cells, revealing the younger brighter-looking complexion beneath. This is what’s usually referred to as exfoliation. Other popular ‘exfoliant’ agents include lactic acid and salicylic acid. Glycolic acid is unique in being of a very small molecular size, making it very highly absorbable in the skin. This facilitates an even ‘deeper’ exfoliation, compared to other alpha hydroxy acids
Glycolic acid as a moisturizer
Glycolic acid has a very interesting relationship with water. It falls under a category of skin care agents that are referred to as being ‘hydrophilic’ – ones that attract and bond with water. As you may have already suspected, this is good news for your skin. Glycolic acid belongs to the most effective group of moisturizers for deep skin moisturizing, – the humectants. Like the other substances in this group, it draws water from the atmosphere, and then it’s absorbed with it into the deeper layers of skin. This is what’s partly responsible for the ‘plump’ it adds to the skin.
Being a moisturizing, as well as exfoliant agent, makes glycolic acid unique, and different from other top-performing exfoliants like salicylic acid. For instance, salicylic acid is also known for excessively drying the skin and hence requiring a great deal of caution as you use it.
Glycolic acid as a collagen-booster
As if the moisturizing and exfoliation effects are not enough, glycolic acid also restores collagen, a very vital structural protein in skin, that declines with aging. This puts glycolic acid in a class of its own, as an antiaging agent. Multiple studies around this effect have proven that glycolic acid is a friend indeed for your skin’s collagen. The age-related gradual reduction in collagen is what brings about the wrinkling that come with time, and can even be accelerated with sun exposure, a phenomenon referred to as photo aging.
Who knew, that a single skin care ingredient could be this serious about your aging – Well now you do.
Happy shopping 😊