1) Is the active ingredient listed "L-Ascorbic Acid"?

2) Was it bottled in a completely oxygen-free environment?

Serums containing "ascorbyl palmitate," "tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate," "magnesium ascorbyl phosphate,"...etc. are all legally allowed to be called "Vitamin C serums," though these derivative forms to have little-to-no actual Vitamin C antioxidant power on their own. The ingredient you're looking for is l-ascorbic acid, which is the pure, natural, full-potency form of Vitamin C you'd find in a freshly-picked orange. This is also the form that will show the greatest visible benefits to your complexion. We include some derivative forms on top of l-ascorbic-acid, since your skin has some capacity to store these forms for later conversion to the real deal.

The second thing to note is that if your Vitamin C serum doesn't smell sweet and look like light yellow apple sauce, it's no longer Vitamin C. There's a lot of talk out there about "stabilized Vitamin C" created by adding water or ferulic acid. These indeed increase the stability, but if the serum is bottled with oxygen exposure, every hour it sits on the shelf it will continue to oxidize, degrade and lose its effectiveness significantly. 

All Protocol serums are lab-made, using a patented NASA-level containment technology from to protect our ingredients from oxygen and UV light during the bottling process.

Why has no one else done this? Because it's really, really hard.

If you read the fine print of most of the popular ascorbic-acid serums on the market, you'll see a plea saying "don't stock up." This is because unless their serums are bottled in a completely 100% oxygen-free and light-free environment, they will degrade and lose potency within a couple months. Protocol worked with aerospace engineering firms to develop a patented bottling process to deliver ascorbic acid to you exactly as nature intended it: pure and perfect.

The secret that brings it all together though, is what we call our little orange ingredient fortress: