Among the many things that can harm your skin, the most harmful are the free radicals. These are produced by pollution, drugs, and sunlight. These particles are harmful to the skin due to the fact that they oxidize easily. The best way to protect your skin from these free radicals is to use creams, moisturizers, and lotions.

Do you know what tocopherols and tocotrienols are? Unless you are a scientist or researcher you most likely are unable to answer that question. Those are the scientific terms for a class of chemical compounds know as Vitamin E. These compounds are are essential for human nutrition and are commonly found in skin care products such as creams and lotions. Damaging chemical reactions are hindered when products that contain vitamin e are used. This is possible as vitamin e is soluble in the fat cells that protect the skin.

Among the many properties of vitamin e, one of the most significant ones is when its used an ingredient in skin care. Its useful in skincare as an antioxidant, which helps slow the rate of oxidation. Oxidative reactions are normally damaging to skin cells. Along with this it also provides nutritional benefits that allow your skin to preserve good health.

Vitamin E has several benefits for your body. Some early studies show that by taking more than the recommended daily amount of vitamin e, it can be useful in treating possibly even preventing such ailments including but limited to:

menstrual pain

low sperm count

inflammation of eye tissues

cataracts

restless leg syndrome or relief from muscle cramping

Alzheimer’s disease

Parkinson’s disease

rheumatoid arthritis

asthma

various diabetes related complications and maybe helpful in treating and preventing diabetes itself

cardiovascular disease

prostate cancer and breast cancer

If taken orally benefits can also include helping the body increase and regulate the levels of vitamin a, its a general immune system booster particularly for older adults. If used topically, vitamin e can also encourage good blood circulation and decrease the chances of blood clots forming; mainly in people who have diabetes.

Although many agree that vitamin e is very useful and that is an essential vitamin; there haven’t been many formal in depth studies in order to prove and verify these claims. In order to truly get a better understanding and to make these verifiable proven true statements, further scientific studies would need to be done to pin point whether vitamin e is in fact a contributing factor to preventing the above stated conditions.

In order to receive the most benefits of Vitamin E for skin care, you should use it through topical application in creams and lotions rather than taking vitamin e orally. By using it topically it allows the skin to absorb the natural vitamin effectively. On the other hand, due to its importance for good health for other areas of the body, taking it orally is also important.

Below are four of the many benefits that vitamin e offers by way of skin care:

vitamin e products help reduce the appearance of stretch marks

vitamin e can help prevent the appearance of age spots

it helps maintain the skin’s oil balance during the cleansing process

it reduces transepidermal water loss from skin and strengthens the skin’s barrier function

Most of the expert recommended skin lotions and creams contain the alcohol form of vitamin e rather than the acetate form. The acetate form doesn’t penetrate the skins surface as well and it provides less of the benefits such as its antioxidant activity.