 Vitamins A and E are present in our skin. The main circulating form of vitamin A in the blood is retinol, the epidermis stores it as retinyl esters. The epidermis can be easily saturated with high amounts of vitamin A by vital use of either retinaldehyde or retinol, two well-tolerated precursors of the biologically active retinoic acid, while topical alpha-tocopherol loads the epidermis with vitamin E.
The possible physiological function of epidermal vitamin E is to promote to the antioxidant defense of the skin, whereas the functions of epidermal vitamin A is not well known.
Vitamin A also has a free radical clean potential. Due to their physical properties, vitamins A and E absorb ultraviolet (UV) light in the region of sunny spectrum that is responsible for most of the deleterious biological effects of the sun.
Vitamin A also prevents the UV-induced epidermal hypovitaminosis A, while topical vitamin E prevents oxidative stress and cutaneous and systemic immunosuppression elicited by UV. Thus and so constitutive epidermal vitamins A and E appear complementary in preventing UV-induced deleterious cutaneous and systemic effects and these properties can be reinforced by topical application of retinol or retinaldehyde and topical alpha-tocopherol.
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