Kojic Acid, Glutathione, Vitamin C: Decoding Skin Whitening Ingredients

There are a lot of skin-lightening products for sale in the Philippines, whether in drugstores, supermarkets, or online stores. If you have tried walking along the aisles of physical stores or browsing through an online skin care shop, you might have seen a variety of products—such as creams, soaps, serums, and lotions—that promise to brighten your skin tone. These products have become more popular throughout the years because more and more Filipinas want to achieve a lighter complexion.

Why People Want to Lighten Their Skin

Most people start using skin-lightening products to achieve a brighter complexion and a radiant glow. This is because having a brighter skin tone makes you look healthier and younger.

But sometimes, people have more reasons for using this type of product than just wanting a lighter complexion. For some, it may be more about wanting to even out their skin tone. This is possible because skin brightening products often contain ingredients that can address various concerns, such as facial sunspots, pimple marks, and dullness.

Choosing the Right Skin Care Product

There is a variety of skin care products that you can easily choose from. However, with the number of brands offering skin care products that promise to brighten your skin tone, how do you know which one to pick?

Before buying a new lightening product to use on your skin, you should consider the components of each item. Make sure to determine what are the ingredients of the skin-lightening products you are purchasing. You should also check if they can help you achieve a brighter complexion without harming your skin.

To be sure, you should choose a skin care product made with naturally derived lightening ingredients. Three of the most common skin-lightening ingredients you may encounter are Kojic Acid, Glutathione, and Vitamin C. Here’s what you need to know about each one:

Glutathione

Also known as GSH, Glutathione is an antioxidant that is produced in the liver and normally found in the cells of your body. It is composed of three amino acids, namely glutamine, glycine, and cysteine.

How It Works

Glutathione is an important component in the body because it is involved in the building and repair of your tissues and making the chemicals and proteins that your body needs to work properly. Additionally, glutathione helps in your immune system’s functions.

Aside from these, Glutathione also plays important functions in your body and provides the following benefits:

• Reduce oxidative stress
• Improve psoriasis
• Reduce cell damage in liver
• Improve insulin resistance
• Increase mobility
• Reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
• Manage autoimmune disease
• Reduce oxidative damage in children with autism
• Reduce the symptoms of respiratory disease

Although these benefits are surely good for your health, you might be more familiar with Glutathione as a skin-lightening ingredient. You might have seen celebrities and influencers promoting brightening products that have Glutathione as their main ingredient. But how does this component lighten your complexion?

Glutathione can cause your skin to become lighter by converting the melanin in your body to a lighter color. It also works by deactivating the enzyme tyrosinase, which is responsible for creating the pigment in your skin. This process also helps in reducing the appearance of dark spots and blemishes on your skin, leaving you with a more even complexion.

Using products or undergoing treatments that use Glutathione regularly can help you achieve your desired complexion. This component is mild enough to be used daily without dealing with any adverse reactions.

Fun Fact: Did you know that Glutathione was first used as a means to prevent diseases? In 1921, Japanese doctors used this component to restore and repair patients’ liver enzymes to normal conditions. Incidentally, they found that their patients’ complexions became lighter as the treatment progressed.

Kojic Acid

Another common skin lightening ingredient that you might have encountered while shopping for skin care products is Kojic Acid. In fact, you might have started using it long before.

But how much do you really know about Kojic Acid? Do you know where this component comes from and how it works to lighten your skin?

Kojic Acid was formally discovered in 1989. It comes from mushrooms native to Japan and is a by-product of the fermentation process that produces sake—an alcoholic drink in Japan—soy sauce, and rice wine.

How It Works

This component helps you achieve a brighter complexion in two ways. First, Kojic Acid gently and thoroughly exfoliates your skin, allowing you to shed dead skin cells and get rid of the oil, dirt, and impurities on your skin. This then leaves you with a softer and fresher skin layer that looks younger as well.

Kojic Acid also helps brighten your complexion by inhibiting the production of tyrosine in your body. This enzyme is responsible for the production of melanin. Therefore, Kojic Acid prevents your body from creating the pigment that makes your skin appear darker.

Aside from simply brightening your skin, Kojic Acid can provide you with the following benefits:

• Improve the appearance of age spots and sun damage
• Anti-aging effect
• Melasma treatment
• Improve the appearance of scars
• Antifungal and antibacterial properties

These benefits all make Kojic Acid a very popular ingredient of different skin care and cosmetic products, such as creams, lotions, serums, and soaps. It is also considered a safe component for skin care items as long as it does not exceed concentrations of 1 percent.

Vitamin C

When you hear the term Vitamin C, what is the first thing that you think about? Most probably, you associate this component with supplements. This might be the case because your parents used to give you Vitamin C every day to boost your immune system.

You must have also been advised by your parents and other elderly individuals to eat citrus fruits whenever you have a cold. According to them, these fruits contain enough Vitamin C to help you fight off your symptoms and feel better right away.

How It Works

Vitamin C is an antioxidant that protects your cells from damaging free radicals and helps in wound healing, collagen formation, and iron absorption. This component also contributes to the growth, development, and repair of your body’s tissues, which is essential if you are fighting off a cold.

Aside from these benefits, Vitamin C can also do wonders for your skin. Because this component helps in the formation of collagen, Vitamin C is effective in keeping your skin firm and supple. In turn, it leaves you with a younger-looking complexion that you can flaunt without worries.

Vitamin C also helps your body prevent the damages caused by free radicals, which are brought about by prolonged exposure to the sun’s UV rays. Because of this component, you can keep your skin healthy and young and reduce the appearance of wrinkles, dryness, and premature signs of aging.

Ultimately, Vitamin C is effective in lightening your skin tone. It does so by reducing the generation of melanin in your skin, resulting in less pigmentation.

Benefit From All These Ingredients

To help you achieve the complexion you desire sooner, combine the power of the three brightening ingredients listed above. You can accomplish this by using Gluta-C’s Kojic Plus+ products. This line of products can lighten your skin effectively without causing any damage.