If You're Seeing Fine Lines Around The Eyes, You May Need This Antioxidant

As much as advertising may convince you that a single skin care product can make fine lines around the eyes "disappear," there's no such thing as a miracle elixir. The truth is, no matter how many eye creams and "anti-aging" skin care products you use, you can't get around the need for a holistic approach: You need to be consistent with your skin care, wear SPF daily, and avoid stressors, such as sun, smoke, and pollution. (Yes, 90% of visible skin aging can be attributed to sun exposure1, thanks to free radicals.) Luckily, there is a way to naturally encourage healthy skin aging that specifically combats these free radicals, aka the root of skin aging at the source.

Your body naturally has antioxidants that work to fight off free radicals in the body, but you can better this defense system via consuming antioxidants and using them topically.* Astaxanthin is an antioxidant just like the other more well-known nutrient varieties vitamins C and E but has slightly different benefits.

Carotenoids are the ones responsible for giving red and orange foods their bright hues. Although beta-carotene (aka vitamin A) is one of the most well-known carotenoids, astaxanthin has been crowned "King of the Carotenoids." That's because astaxanthin is five times more potent than beta-carotene, the good stuff in carrots, and a whopping 6,000 times more potent than vitamin C. (That's not to entirely discredit vitamin C, which your skin needs to build collagen, not to mention all of vitamin C's other essential roles in the body!) 

So we mentioned that sun exposure contributes to skin aging via free radicals, but let's get a quick refresher on how exactly this happens in the body. 

"Free radicals set off a chain of events in your body that begin to cause signs of aging, including the breakdown of your collagen and elastin, which makes your skin wrinkle, sag, and appear thinner," dermatologist Keira Barr, M.D., previously told mbg. 

So it makes sense that if you're looking to have healthy skin aging, getting in your antioxidants should be at the top of your priority list, next to SPF of course. This is especially true for astaxanthin, as it almost acts as an internal sunscreen, enhancing skin photoprotection from UV rays, and helping maintain a healthy inflammatory response.* Studies even show that astaxanthin can help delay the impacts of UV exposure3.* But that's not all; this antioxidant can actually benefit the skin post-sun and in the long term as well: Clinical research has found that astaxanthin helps improve skin wrinkles, age spot size, and skin texture4, as well as moisture content and skin elasticity5.*

Now that you know how beneficial astaxanthin can be for your skin, you're probably wondering how to get it into your diet without eating loads of salmon on a daily basis. Luckily, this antioxidant can be found in certain supplements, including mbg cellular beauty+.