How Antioxidants Defend Against Premature Skin Ageing

Every day, our skin faces a barrage of invisible stressors: pollution, UV rays and blue light that quietly chip away at its health and overall radiance. These environmental stressors are invisible threats that cause accumulating damage to our skin over time, resulting in premature skin ageing. Most are a part of daily life, but with the right care, their impact can be minimised.

These stressors can generate free radicals in our body that accelerate visible signs of ageing. Free radicals are unstable molecules missing an electron. To stabilise themselves, they seek out electrons from healthy skin cells, triggering a chain reaction of oxidative damage. This is known as oxidative stress, when the body has too many free radicals and not enough antioxidants to neutralise them, leading to cellular damage and inflammation.

The Effects Of Pollution On Your Skin

Left unchecked, this damage from oxidative stress manifests in the form of visible signs of ageing such as wrinkles, dull, lacklustre skin, increased redness, hyperpigmentation, and barrier disruption. These aren’t just surface concerns, they’re signs that deep skin structures like collagen & elastin are under threat.

Antioxidants: The Skin’s Natural Defenders

This is where antioxidants step in. These superheroes are one of the most powerful defences in our skincare arsenal. They protect against premature ageing by neutralising free radicals before they can cause harm, helping to maintain firmness, even tone, and skin resilience.

Without antioxidants, free radicals encourage a continuous cycle of damaging our healthy skin cells. This has a knock-on effect that depletes our natural supply of collagen and elastin, as well as disrupting cell signalling, and causing chronic inflammation, contributing to the process of premature skin ageing.

However, not all antioxidant protection is created equal.

The Ultimate Trio: Vitamin C, Acetyl Zingerone & Phyto Exosomes

At Medik8, we’ve taken antioxidant defence to the next level. C-Tetra Advanced features a next-generation ingredient combination designed to shield the skin from pollution-induced stress:

✓ 20% Vitamin C Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate (THDA):
That visibly brightens and firms.

✓ Acetyl Zingerone:
A powerful, nature-inspired omni antioxidant designed to work synergistically to defend against damaging free radicals.

✓ Phyto Exosomes:
An advanced delivery system derived from green tea leaves offers hydrating and anti-inflammatory properties, which address the effects of chronic pollution exposure.

Together, this transformative trio of ingredients is designed to combat visible skin ageing before it begins.

Inside the Lab: How We Tested C-Tetra Advanced

To prove the power of this formula, we simulated extreme pollution exposure in a controlled laboratory setting, and the results were remarkable. We exposed skin to very high levels of particulate matter pollution (equivalent to 19 days of high pollution in London), and analysed the resulting oxidative skin damage. The outcome? Proving that C-Tetra Advanced delivers exactly what it promises.

C-Tetra Advanced is scientifically proven to shield against environmental stressors that cause premature skin ageing, reducing damage by up to 78%*

^{*Proven via in vitro protein carbonylation study using European standard reference environmental pollutants}

After exposure, we measured oxidative damage across all samples through fluorescence microscopy, which you can see below. The red fluorescence shows the level of damage to skin proteins, and the blue helps us visualise where the cells are by staining the nucleus.

The results were clear: Skin treated with C-Tetra Advanced showed significantly less oxidative damage than unprotected skin. This shows that C-Tetra Advanced helps reduce pollution-induced damage, offering a protective barrier against environmental stressors.

Science-backed, tested and trusted. This is vitamin C, but not as you know it.