#advice from a profound nonexpert

[flange5]

Slowly finding products that work for me - am gearing up to try vitamin c/e/ferulic (?) - may I ask what you use/recommend? Sorry if you posted about this already and I missed it.

Okay, so I can only give limited advice here from experience and then tell you what I’ve read.

For any, you want to keep it in the dark, preferably the fridge, to slow down oxidation-you can tell it’s oxidizing as it gets more and more yellow which is fairly inevitable with any of these products because of the ingredients, if you’re going for an L-Asorbic Acid. the CE+F is supposed to stabilize it somewhat, but it really is somewhat. All of them have a shelf life of 3 months, which can be extended a bit by keeping it the fridge, and by wrapping the bottle in foil to block light. (I am a bad person who doesn’t do this, but if you really want to extend the life, doing this, and if you’re really serious, decanting half a bottle right away to protect it until the first half is gone can also extend the life.) Close bottles as quickly as possible and tightly. Also, They all have a fairly unpleasant smell, which ranges from hot dog to metallic hot dog. I thought I was imagining it when I had my first bottle of Cosmetic Skin Solutions, but no, it’s the L-Ascorbic Acid.

The gold standard, which I’ve not tried myself bc it’s like $165/30ml bottle, is SkinCeuticals (x). You can finagle this a bit by going to an ebay seller with good rep and buying the 4-5ml samples, which appear to be going for about 10/$100 now, which is basically 1.8 bottles for $100 and has the benefit of only exposing one small ampoule at a time, which means you can probably keep the one you’re using out of the fridge and the others in the fridge until needed, plus you’re getting it for about 1/3 the usual cost. It’s still a significant outlay and there are a few notable dupes, which I’ll link below in order of descending price. None of the dupes will be exact, as SkinCeuticals patented their formulation and any formulation of the 3 actives in it which fall within a certain pH range, so dupers have to get sneaky to try to replicate its results without violating the patent rules, like formulating within 0.1 of the pH range or tweaking the % on one or more of the ingredients without messing with the efficacy overall.  

Usually the first dupe you hear of is Cosmetic Skin Solutions, which comes in at $40 (x). I’ve used it and liked it, but you do have to be super careful with it RE:oxidation. I didn’t keep it in the fridge and it was a pumpkin color within 6 weeks, which is a COMMON complaint of users. For this reason, though they offer a large 60 ml bottle in addition to the usual 30ml, I can see no earthly reason why you or any reasonable person would buy it. Until it oxidized, I definitely noticed improvements in skin brightness, texture, and lessening of fine lines, but I stopped buying it because of the oxidation and then fell off the Vit C train (except for a short detour to the grainy Ordinary 30% cream which I’ve heard has fixed its texture issue but eh). I just restarted with Timeless but ... see below.  I’ve seen multiple comparisons of CSS to SkinCeuticals which basically say it’s a fair dupe but not quite as effective. it’s also a quarter of the price. If it matters to you, if you buy from them, rather than amazon, it’s usually $5 cheaper and they tend to send a free sample ampoule of one of their other serums, typically a B vitamin.–I liked it, but yeah, you have to baby the hell out of it to keep it effective for the life of the bottle and it still might not work with all the babying in the world. I imagine the same is true of the SkinCeuticals, because there is a chorus of people bewailing their partial bottles oxidized all to hell, and at that price. 

Timeless vit CE+F is $24 (x) and I’m using it now. It seems more stable-I’ve not refrigerated it, had it out a month, and it is fully clear. That said, I feel like I need a little more time with it to judge it. This (x) head to head comparison review between CSS and Timeless and a third brand called Paula’s choice sees CSS and Timeless as tied in efficacy, but Timeless as much more stable. It’s also cheaper, so yay! 

Skin Deva’s vit c 20% +E and F sounds pretty comparable to Timeless, in that it has similar reviews in terms of efficacy and longevity. It’s $4 cheaper, but doesn’t have the same online presence and chorus of fans, so take that as you will. (x) I read a review that said this was 90% as effective as SkinCeuticals for her–same results, just slower, and she found it more effective than CSS.

Drunk Elephant’s C Firma has really mixed reviews, and at that price point, I don’t see why you would bother with the available much more affordable alternatives, pretty as the packaging is, which is kind of my attitude towards most of their stuff, with the exception of the peptide protini, which I am courting with my tax refund. 

tl;dr, it looks to me like if you’re thinking about a vit C+EF and you’re not swimming in a vat of money, I’d go with Timeless, or maybe Skin Deva. 

I hope this is helpful!