When it comes to medical grade skincare, Vitamin B is a sort of quiet achiever. It has a powerful range of benefits for your skin, but it’s also gentle and soothing enough to be used on all skin types, particularly dry sensitive skin. As it seems to be growing in popularity in the skincare industry this year, here are the top eight beauty benefits of Vitamin B.

Naturally Hydrating

Vitamin B has been found to help regulate your skin’s natural moisture levels to keep it hydrated and prevent overproduction of sebum (your skin’s natural oils).

It also helps to restore your skin’s natural moisture barrier, which helps to prevent trans-epidermal water loss. This keeps your skin healthy, hydrated and supple. It also helps prevent irritation.

Anti-inflammatory

The most remarkable thing about Vitamin B is how well it soothes the skin. It helps to bring down existing inflammation, irritation and redness. It can also reduce some of the sensitising effects of other ingredients in your makeup and skincare.

Its soothing properties make Vitamin B a great active for all skin types, but especially so for dry sensitive skin.

Powerful Antioxidant

Vitamin B is one of the most effective antioxidants available for preventing damage caused by free radicals.

Free radicals are oxygen-carrying molecules that react with other molecules in your body. When the balance between free radicals and antioxidants becomes skewed, the free radicals start to cause oxidative stress, which damages the cells and leads to signs of ageing in soft tissues like skin.

Antioxidants help keep the balance in your skin and prevent free radical damage. Vitamin B, in particular, also helps your cells to reverse some existing free radical damage.

Treat Dermatitis

Vitamin B is so soothing and hydrating that it’s been used to treat atopic skin conditions such as eczema and dermatitis.

In some cases, it can help reduce redness associated with rosacea, but rosacea is a sensitive condition that varies between people, so it may not work for all cases.

Damage Prevention

Pollution, synthetic makeup or skincare ingredients and changing seasons can all cause micro damages and ageing in your skin’s tissues.

Vitamin B helps your skin cells ward of damage and keep the skin protected as an antioxidant and by maintaining the skin’s natural barrier.

UV Protection

More recent evidence has come out to suggest that Vitamin B helps to protect your skin from UV damage and even helps reverse existing damage!

This doesn’t mean that Vitamin B can protect you from sunburn, and it definitely doesn’t provide the broad-spectrum protection that you get from sunscreen, but it can help with some of the side effects of the sun such as premature ageing.

Even Out Your Skin Tone

Your skin cells produce a protein called PAR 2 which allows melanin (skin pigment) to be transferred into them. When melanin is transferred unevenly, you get visible brown spots or pigmentation on the surface of your skin.

Vitamin B helps regulate how much melanin is transferred into your skin cells by partially blocking the PAR 2 receptors. This helps even out your skin tone.

Acne

Vitamin A has often been the go-to vitamin for acne, but it works even better in combination with Vitamin B.

While Vitamin A helps to regulate oil production in your skin, Vitamin B helps to regulate moisture for a balanced complexion.

Not to mention, Acne is an inflammatory condition, and Vitamin B is a natural anti-inflammatory that can soothe irritated acne lesions and calm the skin so that it can heal.

How do you get the beauty benefits of Vitamin B?

When you take an oral supplement, you can’t guarantee that the nutrients will be delivered to your skin, so in order to get the benefits of Vitamin B to your skin, it’s best to apply a serum with Vitamin B in it.

For Vitamin B to provide any of the above beauty benefits, it should be formulated into a serum in high concentrations. Moisturisers and creams tend to have thicker consistencies and ingredients with larger molecular structures that can’t penetrate the skin. When your Vitamin B sticks to these molecules, it is blocked from absorbing into your skin as well.

Serums tend to have a thinner consistency for better absorption. RejuvAus [S1+] ABC Repair & Restore Antioxidant Serum has 5% Vitamin B in a base of natural essential oils which mimic the lipid structure of your skin’s barrier, so they actually help with absorption of your vitamins.