Meet Our Ingredients: Vitamin E (Tocopherol)

Welcome to the 11th edition of "Meet Our Ingredients". This is where we showcase the ingredients we use in our products to keep you informed of what you are putting on your body, why it is so powerful, and how it works to give you amazing skin.

Hawaiian Healing Skin Care prides itself on using only natural and organic ingredients in each of our products. We don't include any chemicals or synthetic elements – only items nature provides. We like to say nature knows what you need, so we are giving it to you in each amazing Hawaiian Healing product.

This week’s showcased ingredient: Vitamin E (Tocopherol)

When I was a young girl, the women in my family would always talk about how vitamin E would help heal scars or wounds. A vitamin could do that?

Not knowing any better, anytime I’d get a small cut or scrape, I’d go hunting for a bottle of vitamin E to stop any scarring.

What is Vitamin E (Tocopherol)?

What I didn’t know at the time, is there isn’t just a single compound in Vitamin E. This natural vitamin exists in eight chemical forms - alpha, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocopherol, and alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocotrienol.

If you are looking to incorporate a quality vitamin E into your skincare routine, look for “tocopherol” in the ingredients because the FDA requires the official name to appear first in ingredient lists.

It's also important to know how vitamin E is incorporated into the products you're using. Artificial vitamin E can be manufactured in a lab, and natural vitamin E can be chemically extracted from natural sources. But neither method is as beneficial to your body as to when it is included by incorporating plant extracts that are high in natural vitamin E.

While the science is still incomplete there is overwhelming evidence that natural extracts containing vitamin E are more easily absorbed and processed by the body. Like many ingredients, the synthetic lab-made versions are quite a bit cheaper. Since the unsuspecting consumer likely does not know the difference, there is little incentive for corporations to use the natural, more easily absorbed versions.

Hawaiian Healing Skin Care adds this powerful ingredient in natural form into not one, not two, but three skincare products, to help you achieve, and maintain exceptional skin health. We always use only natural ingredients, never lab-made substitutes!

Vitamin E easily absorbs easily into the skin. Products incorporating this super-ingredient, help to increase the amount of vitamin E stored within the sebaceous glands, which are small glands in the skin that secrete the lubricating oily matter sebum into the hair follicles to lubricate the skin and hair.

“Just as sebum provides a delivery mechanism for vitamin E to the stratum corneum, topical applications of vitamin E permeate the epidermis and dermis.”

Alpha-tocopherol is the only form recognized to meet human health requirements, so it’s very important to make sure you’re choosing the proper healthy elements to provide your body with the things that will cause improvements.

What does Vitamin E do?

Vitamin E helps to block free radicals from the body which play a huge part in the aging process. When you can fight off free radicals, then you are able to help reduce wrinkles and keep your skin looking youthful and vibrant.

Did You Know: Vitamin E (Tocopherols) make up 96% of our skin’s natural defense mechanism!

It also helps to:

Absorbs UV rays and helps prevent UV-induced free radical damage through antioxidant properties.
As an antioxidant, vitamin E primarily reacts with reactive oxygen species. In addition, vitamin E can also absorb the energy from ultraviolet (UV) light. Thus, it plays important roles in photo-protection, preventing UV-induced free radical damage to skin.
Tightens and firms your skin.
Since sunlight and free radicals also damage collagen and elastin, antioxidant protection helps maintain skin's strength.
Helps to moisturize the skin
While vitamin E oil is very thick and hard to spread on skin, it can make an excellent moisturizer for dry, patchy areas of skin. Products containing vitamin E as an ingredient may be easier to apply for overall use on skin.
Helps to reduce inflammation
Anti-inflammatory effects of vitamin E used topically, have been seen in the skin, although more studies are needed to determine if vitamin E primarily works as a free-radical scavenger or can have other effects on inflammatory signaling.
Helps reduce scarring
Vitamin E penetrates the skin and diminishes the free radicals that hinder the healing process. Vitamin E also impacts the production of collagen, a protein which aids in the strength and elasticity of the skin.

Vitamin E’s antioxidant properties not only help protect, heal, and rejuvenate your skin, but also help protect the all-natural products by acting as a preservative. It prevents natural oils like carrot seed, macadamia nut or jojoba from going rancid.

As a highly effective multi-tasking ingredient, there’s no question as to why Hawaiian Healing Skin Care included Vitamin E in the three highest-selling products: our Pure Revitalizing Cream, Under Eye Serum, and Nourishing Night Oil.

Hawaiian Healing Skin Care Products are FILLED with the finest natural and organic ingredients. Our glass and bamboo packaging help to support sustainability and are eco-friendly. By having some of the most luxurious ingredients sourced directly from the islands of Hawai’i, and all over the globe, Hawaiian Healing Skin Care is able to provide your skin with the best all-natural and organic skincare products available.