Oxidative stress from exogenous insults is a major driver of skin aging and hyperpigmentation. Plant-derived bioactive compounds represent promising multifunctional agents with protective effects on skin. They meet the demand for natural, safe skin-protective agents with well-defined action mechanisms. However, current studies lack an integrated understanding of their dual cellular protective mechanisms: antioxidation and autophagy. A unified “component–pathway–efficacy” regulatory network remains lacking, which limits mechanistic insights into skin protection. To address this gap, this comprehensive narrative review retrieved literature from four authoritative databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Wiley Online Library. With targeted keyword retrieval, 129 core studies published between 2021 and 2025 were selected for synthesis. The selection was based on relevance, methodological rigor, and scientific impact. This review constructs a novel “antioxidation–autophagy” synergistic regulatory model. It also establishes a consolidated dual-mechanism framework outlining the “component–pathway–efficacy” axis. This framework reduces knowledge fragmentation across natural product research, skin biology and translational molecular biology. This work integrates the dual protective mechanisms of plant-derived bioactive compounds for skin protection and translational applications. It provides a theoretical basis for understanding their molecular regulatory logic and facilitates further mechanistic studies and translational research on skin protection.
Zhu et al. (Sun,) studied this question.