Tannic Acid
Tannic acid is a high-molecular-weight polyphenol with an exceptionally complex molecular architecture: a central glucose core surrounded by multiple galloyl ester groups, giving it an unusually high density of hydroxyl groups and an antioxidant potency that significantly exceeds other phenolic anitoxidant molecules.
Inspired by the Sequoia tree
It was research into the Sequoia’s biological defenses that ALPHASCIENCE to identify tannic acid as a high-potential cosmeceutical active. A molecule that has protected one of the longest-lived organisms on the planet from the precise biological processes that accelerate skin aging was worth taking seriously.
The Sequoia — capable of living over 3,000 years, resistant to fire, fungi, insects, and environmental degradation at a scale no other species matches — owes a significant part of its extraordinary resilience to the high tannic acid concentration that saturate the bark of the tree, providing an exceptional chemical defense system against oxidative attack, enzymatic degradation, and microbial assault.
Skin benefits
Tannic Acid simultaneously defends, repairs, and visibly soothes — making it particularly transformative for photodamaged, redness prone or pollution-exposed skin
- offers broad-spectrum antioxidant and pollution protection
- inhibits lipid peroxidation lipid peroxidation, the oxidative degradation of lipids in cellular membranes that progressively compromises barrier integrity, cellular function, and tissue architecture
- directly blocks the enzymes that break down collagen, helping preserve skin density over time.
- binds to the elastin in blood vessel walls — visibly calming redness, reducing capillary fragility, and evening skin tone.
- minimizes chronic low-grade inflammation that drives sensitivity and accelerates photoaging.
ALPHASCIENCE formula containing Tannic Acid
TANNIC [CF] SERUM