Maritime Pine Bark extract, also known as Pine Bark extract, offers benefits to beauty and anti-aging for the skin. It is generally used as a dietary supplement in the treatment of various diseases due to its polyphenol-rich ingredients.
A recent study shows that Maritime Pine Bark also contributes to skin hydration and reduces pigmentation when taken orally, and applied topically. In one study, pycnogenol, the extract from Maritime Pine Bark, offered photoprotection — however, it came out even better than expected, showing that it may be used to reduce hyperpigmentation of human skin while improving the “skin barrier function and extracellular matrix homeostasis.”
Another study looked at nutritional supplementation of 20 healthy postmenopausal women with the standardised pine bark extract and whether it would improve their cosmetic appearance and relate these effects to expression of corresponding molecular markers of their skin.
“This study provides skin-physiological and, for the first time, molecular evidence that pycnogenol (maritime pine bark) supplementation benefits human skin by increasing skin hydration and skin elasticity,” the authors concluded. “These effects are most likely due to an increased synthesis of extracellular matrix molecules such as hyaluronic acid and possibly collagen. Pycnogenol supplementation may thus be useful to counteract the clinical signs of skin aging.”
In a study of 112 women with mild to moderate photoaging of the skin, showed that it helped reduce ultraviolet radiation damage to the skin and may protect human facial skin from symptoms of photoaging. There was 'clinically significant improvement in photodamaged skin...achieved with Pine Bark Extract'.
References
https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/335261
https://www.dovepress.com/oral-administration-of-french-maritime-pine-bark-extract-flavangenolre-peer-reviewed-article-CIA
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Oral-administration-of-French-maritime-pine-bark-in-Furumura-Sato/23d8308bf663ea25ec2d16ec89847588ed57b756
