In addition to a sunburn, UV exposure triggers a cascade of damaging effects on your skin. From oxidative stress to cellular senescence, there's more damage affecting your skin than you might realize, especially from low-level daily sun exposure.
While traditional sunscreens are great for preventing sunburns and even some of the long-term photodamage caused by UV radiation, they aren't perfect. They can easily be wiped away, lose their effectiveness in the sun, and leave your skin vulnerable to the damage that persists long after exposure ends.
By targeting oxidative stress, supporting cellular repair mechanisms, and fortifying your skin's UV defense, the powerful antioxidant profile in OS-01 FACE SPF turns it from a simple sunscreen to an integral step in protecting the health of your skin.
How Does UV Radiation Damage The Skin
You may not see it happening, but UV rays are constantly working against your skin. UV rays interfere with your skin’s repair process, weaken your immune response, and trigger free radical production. Over time, this silent damage leads to wrinkles, loss of firmness, and premature aging.
Structural Damage
UV exposure causes significant structural damage to the skin, primarily by breaking down key proteins like collagen and elastin. These proteins are essential for maintaining the skin's firmness, smoothness, and youthful appearance. When UV rays penetrate the skin, they weaken these important structures, leading to a loss of elasticity, sagging, and the development of wrinkles.[1]
The problems don't stop there. In response to damaged collagen and elastin, the skin releases collagen-remodeling enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) that break down these damaged proteins, making room for the body to repair itself. While this is a necessary process, MMPs regulate inflammation and can trigger a localized inflammatory response, which can create additional stresses on recovering skin. What's more, this repair process isn't always perfect. Over time, errors in the repair process can accumulate, resulting in wrinkles and crepey skin.[2]
DNA Damage
Higher energy UVB rays, the kind responsible for sunburns, don't just cause damage to structural proteins. Their higher energy state allows them to penetrate the nucleus of the cell, where DNA is stored. Even minor changes in DNA can have extreme consequences, most notably the potential to create cancerous cells.[3]
These mutations can also disrupt the function of fibroblasts, the cells responsible for producing collagen. As fibroblasts lose their ability to function correctly, the skin's capacity to regenerate and maintain its youthful appearance is significantly impaired, leading to signs of aging. At the same time, UV radiation can exhaust the epidermal stem cells responsible for renewing the skin barrier by damaging their DNA, thereby further contributing to skin aging.[4]
Immunosuppression
Cells with DNA damage can have even more systemic effects by suppressing the skin's immune response, which can lead to skin cancer.[5] Interestingly, the level of immunosuppression from UV exposure in men's skin is higher, which may contribute to the higher rates of skin cancer in men.[6]
Oxidative Stress
UV radiation can oxidize, or strip electrons from molecules, and convert them into free radicals. These unstable molecules steal an electron from a nearby molecule, converting it into a free radical. As this process repeats itself throughout your cells, it can disrupt cell functions and accelerate aging. This instability can also drive inflammation and even cellular aging processes like cellular senescence.[7]
Cellular Senescence
Driven by DNA damage from UV radiation and oxidative stress, cellular senescence is considered a primary driver of skin aging. These dysfunctional cells cease replicating and performing normal cell functions while losing their ability to undergo programmed cell death. This causes these cells to accumulate and gradually contribute to skin aging.[8]
Senescent cells aren't passive either. They adopt a senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), releasing pro-inflammatory factors to nearby cells, potentially causing them to become senescent. This creates a pro-aging microenvironment that perpetuates collagen degradation and systemic inflammation.[9]
Changes in Skin Microbiome
Just like your gut microbiome, your skin has its own microbiome with natural bacteria.[10] These bacteria regulate your immune system, barrier function, and skin pH while protecting against infection by outcompeting harmful pathogens on the surface of your skin. Intense UV exposure disrupts the homeostasis of this delicate microbiome, reducing beneficial bacteria while promoting inflammatory species that make the skin prone to premature aging.[11]
How Do Antioxidants Enhance The Protective Effects of OS-01 FACE SPF?
UV filters in sunscreen act as a critical first line of defense by absorbing or scattering harmful UV radiation. However, they don’t tackle UV-induced aging at the cellular level. When paired with UV filters, the antioxidants in OS-01 FACE SPF provide a multi-layered approach to sun protection. While UV filters protect the skin’s surface from immediate UV damage, antioxidants take it a step further by enhancing the skin's response to oxidative stress, inflammation, and immune suppression caused by UV exposure.
Anti-Inflammatory Effects
Intense UV radiation induces a strong inflammatory response, marked by redness (erythema), swelling (edema), and epidermal thickening (hyperplasia). While it’s your body’s natural response to UV-induced damage, chronic inflammation can break down collagen, accelerate aging, and even increase skin cancer risk.[12] Certain antioxidants have anti-inflammatory effects that can help modulate these inflammatory pathways, reducing the expression of harmful cytokines and minimizing tissue damage.[13]
Antioxidant Effects
The body has its own antioxidant defenses, however, prolonged UV exposure overwhelms these systems.[14] Antioxidants can help boost your skin's natural defense mechanisms by scavenging reactive oxygen species. Curbing this damage caused by oxidative stress protects key structural proteins like collagen and elastin, vital to maintaining skin health and appearance.[15]
Immune Function Effects
Antioxidants enhance immune resilience, rather than merely counteracting UV-induced immune suppression. Research has shown that antioxidants like vitamin C and green tea polyphenols can inhibit UV-induced immunosuppression. These antioxidants reduce long-term photodamage and preserve cellular function.[16,17]
How do The Antioxidants in OS-01 FACE SPF Protect Your Skin From UV Damage?
Green Tea Extract
Green tea extract is rich in antioxidants, such as EGCG, which has 25-100 times the antioxidant power of vitamin C.[18] This makes it a powerful tool for neutralizing free radicals, preserving mitochondrial function, and reducing photoaging.[19] Studies have also found that green tea polyphenols actively help repair UV damage by inhibiting inflammatory pathways, preventing immune suppression, and enhancing DNA repair mechanisms.[20]
Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid)
Vitamin C is clinically proven to combat the short and long-term effects of UV damage. When first exposed to UV rays, vitamin C in your SPF or moisturizer can help reduce sunburn severity and reverse early photoaging signs.[21]
In the long term, vitamin C helps neutralize damaging free radicals, regenerate oxidized vitamin E, repair UV-induced pigmentation, and protect collagen from breakdown, helping your skin remain supple and resilient. Plus, vitamin C amplifies the durability of mineral UV filters, extending their longevity on the skin and keeping your skin protected for longer.[22]
Caesalpinia Spinosa Fruit Pod Extract & Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Sprout Extract
Caesalpinia spinosa fruit pod tannins and sunflower sprout extract are potent sources of vitamin E and phenolic acids, antioxidants used by your skin to protect against UV-induced oxidative stress. They can also help boost mitochondrial function and inhibit collagen-degrading inflammatory cytokines like IL-6 and TNF-α.[23] When used in an SPF, they create a powerful defense against the infrared (IR) and high-energy visible (HEV) blue light that the UV filters may not block.[24]
Acai extract
This fruit extract is rich in anthocyanins and polyphenols that help it combat the damage caused by environmental factors like pollution, UV radiation, and free radicals. Additionally, acai extract prevents the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). These compounds form when sugar binds to skin proteins, damaging collagen and causing it to stiffen. This results in wrinkles and a loss of the skin’s natural bounce.[25]
Bisabolol
Derived from chamomile, bisabolol is a naturally occurring antioxidant known for its soothing and anti-inflammatory properties. This makes it perfect for counteracting the inflammatory effects of UV radiation. What’s more, bisabolol is a penetration enhancer that improves the transdermal delivery of other actives, which helps the other actives in OS-01 FACE SPF work within your skin, not just on the surface.[26,27]
Conclusion
Given the role that skin plays in overall longevity, protecting your skin from UV damage is a testament to your health. This makes sunscreens designed to give your skin a powerful daily boost of antioxidants while delivering broad-spectrum UV protection—like OS-01 FACE SPF—some of the most powerful tools in your arsenal against age-related decline. In fact, OS-01 FACE SPF neutralizes free radicals up to 4 times more effectively than leading “anti-aging” sunscreens.[28]
So next time, don't reach for just any sunscreen; look for one designed by longevity scientists to treat your skin with the care it deserves.
Key Takeaways
- While UV filters block radiation, antioxidants target the deeper, cellular effects of UV exposure, offering multi-layered skin protection.
- UV radiation damages the skin at multiple levels, from protein degradation to DNA mutations.
- Antioxidants support your skin's defense against UV-induced oxidative stress, inflammation, and even signs of UV-induced aging.
- Thanks to its antioxidant-rich formulation, OS-01 FACE SPF helps protect against free radical damage up to four times more effectively than other sunscreens.
References
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4292080/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2235912/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3709783/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4842382/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1995595/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X15337337
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4842382/
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41514-023-00109-1
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4842382/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3535073/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4979252/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9307547/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5075620/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3614697/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7935815/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5707683/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1995595/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4322155/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3390139/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1995595/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9854756/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8955451/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30195253/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36057446/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9965320/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9002489/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/037851739190167M
- Based on data from clinical studies and/or lab studies conducted on human skin samples, 3D skin models, and skin or hair cells in the OneSkin lab. Explore more at oneskin.co/claims
