Ingredient Spotlight: European Blueberries
European blueberries (aka bilberries) are a powerful antioxidant ingredient used in skin care, known for helping to protect the skin from oxidative stress while calming inflammation, soothing redness, and supporting a brighter, healthier complexion.
The Vaccinium myrtillus L. fruit, known in English as bilberry or European blueberry (different from North American cultivated blueberries) , has powerful skin protective properties which have been known and utilized since the Middle Ages. Today, blueberries are even claimed to be “the most powerful antioxidants of all.”
The European blueberry is our signature ingredient – and not just because they are purple… Here are their three main benefits at the level of the skin.
1. Anti-redness benefits.
European blueberries play a role in the management of flushing symptoms: they tighten and protect fine capillaries thanks to anthocyanins and are thus ideal in skin care products targeting redness-prone skin. The vaso-protective effect of the European blueberry was first described in the 1960s, when the fruit’s capillary resistance and permeability were first analyzed. Since, a number of clinical studies have confirmed that European blueberries increase capillary resistance and thus decrease redness.
2. Antioxidant benefits.
Antioxidants work to prevent, stop, or repair the damages that are caused in our skin by free radicals. Specifically, the flavonoids found in European blueberries (more specifically the anthocyanosidic extract) are powerful neutralizers of free radicals, with the following benefits: they inhibit lipid peroxidation (leathery coloration of aged skin) and prevent the degradation of collagen (fine lines, wrinkles, loss dehydration).
3. Iron chelating activity.
Iron has often been featured in the health and consumer press in the context of anemia (i.e. iron deprivation). While many have discussed the various ways of ensuring appropriate iron intake, whether through diet (red meat and various fruits and vegetables), or through the daily use of supplements, few realize that excess iron is an accelerator of aging (skin and otherwise).
Indeed, excess iron is involved in various chemical reactions that lead to the production of the hydroxyl radical, one of the most harmful free radicals. Once again, the European blueberry comes to the rescue and plays a key protective role. Both quercetin and myricetin (two types of flavonoids found in this fruit) have iron chelating properties, meaning that they minimize the formation of free radicals stimulated by excess free iron and UV light and prevent accelerated aging.
So eat your blueberries, but put them on your face too! Here are the Alchimie Forever products that feature this magical ingredient.
