Acai berries, the super-antioxidant fruit, looks like purple grapes about twenty-five millimeters in size. It has a single large seed and less pulp than the grape. But the biggest power of acai berries is in their skin. The pulp of acai berries tastes like a mixture of chocolate and coffee but it is not the taste that makes acai so special.

Acai berries was widely used in Brazilian herbal medicine to treat skin disorders, diarrhea, and fever. The Brazilians also use the stems of acai leaves which are harvested as palm hearts and the bark and roots are used in medicine for a wide variety of ailments from anemia to muscle pains and worms. Acai berries are full of antioxidants, amino acids and essential fatty acids, all of which are a vital part of a healthy diet.

Acai berries are rich in flavonoids which are powerful antioxidant compounds that help maintain skin health and reduce the appearance of wrinkles, blemishes and pimples. Acai berries contains twelve flavonoid-like compounds, including homoorientin, orientin, taxifolin, deoxyhexose, isovitexin, scoparin, as well as proanthocyanidins (12.89 mg/g), and low levels of resveratrol (1.1 μg/g).  Freeze-dried açaí fruit pulp and skin was shown to contain anthocyanins (3.19 mg/g); however, anthocyanins accounted for only about 10% of the overall antioxidant capacity in vitro.

Acai berries are also a good source of essential fatty acids, which help the body to renew cells and produce more of them. to benefit from these acai properties, you must apply acai juice or oil directly on the skin. You can easily prepare acai toner by diluting acai juice (commonly sold in health food stores) with water. You must store such acai toner in the refrigerator.

But is acai really such an amazing antioxidant? French study in 2009 reported that açaí has intermediate polyphenol content and antioxidant potency among 11 varieties of frozen juice pulps, scoring lower than acerola, mango, strawberry, and grapes.

A study on freeze-dried acai product Opti-Acai reported that the formulation contained much lower levels of anthocyanins, proanthocyanadins, and other polyphenol compounds as compared with blueberries and other antioxidant-rich fruits.

The bottom line is: acai is really good as a source of antioxidants but familiar berries such as blueberries and dark grapes may benefit you even more.