Flavonoids are a big thing in cosmetics – but what are they and what do they do? Dr Haran Sivapalan explains. Green tea, soybeans, red wine and thyme. What do these ingredients have in common (apart from perhaps all being components of a dish prepared by Heston Blumenthal)? The answer is that they all contain flavonoids, a class of over 4000 plant-derived chemicals (or ‘phytochemicals’) which share a similar molecular structure. Structurally, flavonoids are a type of “polyphenol” – a group of molecules that, in plants, play various roles including: aiding reproduction, fighting against infection and protecting against damage from…