Inhibitory Potential of Coconut and Carrot Oil Extracts on Some Bacterial Skin Microflora

Abstract

In response to the chemically harmful effects of commercially sold body creams on the skin due to the presence of steroids, hydroquinone and kojic acid, natural oil extracts from medicinal plants and fruits are seen as alternative. The use of natural oil extract is not without some intricacies too as its effect against skin microflora has been reported. Therefore, the inhibitory potentials of coconut and carrot oil extracts on some bacterial skin microflora were determined using standard laboratory identification and agar well diffusion methods for identification of bacteria from human skin swab and antibacterial susceptibility test, respectively. The isolated organisms include, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus species, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The result obtained shows that carrot oil extract inhibits all the test isolates with mean zones of inhibition (MZI) ranged from 6.00±1.00 to 12.15±0.55 while coconut oil extract was only active against Pseudomonas aeruginosa with MZI of 12.50±0.55. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) result also shows that carrot oil extract was significantly (p ˂ 0.05) more active than coconut oil with MIC of 50% while the test isolates were still viable at 100% use of coconut oil extract. There was no minimum inhibitory concentration (MBC) obtained as all the test organisms were still viable at 100% of both oil extracts. From the result of this study, it can be concluded that carrot oil extract possesses inhibitory potentials against skin microflora as opposed to coconut oil extract. Therefore, it is safer to apply coconut oil on human skin since it has less inhibitory effect on skin microflora.