What Is Glycolic Acid and How To Use Glycolic Acid

what is glycolic acid, and how to use glycolic acid

There is no doubt about the benefits of glycolic acid in the world of beauty. These active ingredients are often found in many forms of skincare beauty, such as toner, essence, serum, and moisturizer.

Many companies choose to include glycolic acid in their beauty product beauty treatment because glycolic acid is proven to improve facial skin appearance.

What Is Glycolic Acid and How To Use Glycolic Acid

Although skin care junkies are very familiar with these active ingredients, many still don't understand what glycolic acid actually is. Many often wonder where glycolic acid comes from, its benefits, what is the side effects, and how to use it properly. We will discuss all these questions in this article.

What Is Glycolic Acid

Glycolic Acid is one of the acids from the AHA - Alpha Hydroxy Acid Group. Glycolic acid is usually obtained from sugar cane.

Glycolic acid is an active ingredient in the form of solid crystalline with the characteristic colorless, odorless, and soluble in water. Glycolic acid is often used in many beauty products, such as toners and facial creams.

According to PubChem, compared to other types of AHAs, glycolic acid is known to have the smallest molecular size. Due to their molecular small size, these active ingredients are easy to be absorbed by the skin and go deep to penetrate into the skin deepest skin layer.

What Does Glycolic Acid Do For Your Skin

The main thing glycolic acid does for the skin stimulates skin regeneration faster and more efficiently. Glycolic acid will break down dead skin cells, promote skin exfoliation, and stimulate new healthy skin cells to grow faster.

The regular use of glycolic acid will stimulate the skin to produce more collagen. Collagen is a protein that regulates skin moisture, elasticity, and skin firmness.

Glycolic Acid Benefits

According to research, including glycolic acid into your daily skincare routine will be the easiest way to eliminate dull skin and acne.

It also stated that using glycolic acid daily will improve skin elasticity and prevent premature aging. You will have youthfully looking and glowing skin.

Below are the glycolic acid benefits for your skin,

1. Getting rid of dull skin

Since glycolic acids work as exfoliators and stimulate the growth of new skin cells, glycolic acids are excellent active ingredients to help with dull skin problems.

Dull skin is caused by too many dead skin cells that cannot exfoliate properly due to skin dryness or dehydration. This condition caused the glowing new skin cell to fail to come forward.

Glycolic acid will help remove the dead skin cells and promote the new skin cells to come forward, which will cause your skin to glow and look youthful.

2. Overcome acne

Acne occurs due to the trapped dead skin cells, excess sebum, and dirt that accumulate on your skin surface and clog your pores, then get infected by bacteria.

Glycolic acid will help eliminate those dead skin cells, excess sebum, and dirt and prevent from getting clogged pores. If your skin is clean and free from clogged pores, it also reduces the chance of getting acne.

3. Faded acne scars

Besides treating acne scars, glycolic acid also helps to fade your acne scars. As we know, acne often leave skin discoloration, either in the brown or reddish mark. These marks take time to fade from our skin.

Regular use of glycolic acid will help acne marks to fade away. Glycolic will speed up skin cell regeneration; as a result, the acne scars will be gone as soon as possible.

4. Prevent premature aging

One of the best things about using glycolic acid is that this ingredient is also effective in preventing anti-aging. It helps reduce fine lines and wrinkles. 

Fine lines and wrinkles generally occur due to a lack of collagen, elastin, and dehydrated skin.

5. Get rid of uneven skin tone

Uneven skin tone is often caused by many factors, such as sun exposure, aging age, and skin tissue damage. 

An active ingredient with an exfoliation effect will help remove dead skin cells and renew the skin layer to eliminate this uneven skin tone.

The renewing process will make your skin more even and improve your skin texture simultaneously.

How To Use Glycolic Acid

Knowing the right recommended dosage according to skin problems is important to get the full benefits of glycolic acid. Glycolic acid level is available in 10%, 20%, 35%, 50%, and 70%

Applying glycolic acid according to the instruction given by a dermatologist or written on the label of medicinal products is important to avoid skin irritation.

In general, glycolic acid is very effective and safe for the skin. Following are some tips to use glycolic acid safely,

1. Use the product gradually

Glycolic acid is a topical medication. Therefore, this active ingredient only can be used externally. Please keep in mind that if you use glycolic acid for the first time, you must use the product gradually to avoid any side effects.

For example, use the product only 2 or 3 times weekly to see your skin reaction. After you use this product but your skin doesn't show any sign of side effects such as skin irritation, you can increase the use of the product daily.

2. Always use sunscreen

According to the FDA, using AHAs such as Glycolic acid will increase your skin sensitivity, especially toward the sun. Therefore, please avoid direct sun exposure and always wear sunscreen of at least SPF30 in the morning and afternoon.

3. Do not mix with the other exfoliator compound

Using glycolic acid mixed with other exfoliator active ingredients such as retinol, tretinoin, and adapalene will cause your skin to be prone to breakout and irritation.

It can lead to breakout and irritation because using those active ingredients together at the same time will only increase your skin sensitivity and weaken your skin barrier.

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