The Potential of Marine Resources in Cosmetics

Abstract

The Ocean is a continuous body of saltwater that covers more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface. Despite the fact that oceanic habitats exhibit chemical and physical properties that make certain ocean zones suitable or unsuitable places for different species to live, the chemical (salinity and dissolved gases) and physical (temperature, density, buoyancy, waves, tides, and currents) properties of ocean water are delicately intermingled which produce one of the most self-sustaining life support systems on earth. This unique characteristic has made the marine environment an untapped source of bioactive natural products with unique structural and chemical features. Although many marine-derived compounds have been explored for their potential in pharmaceutical industry and some of which are already on the market, these molecules are still underexplored for natural cosmetics when compared to plant-derived compounds. However, recently many cosmetic firms have turned their attention to the sea to obtain several kinds of marine-derived compounds for cosmetic ingredients such as moisturizer, anti-ageing, photoprotection and skin whitening agents. With more research on the small molecules, biopolymers and enzymes from the marine environment, it is expected that the era of “blue cosmetics” will be dominating this sector very soon.