Abstract
Some vegetable oils have many biological properties, including UV-absorbing capacity. Therefore, their use has been suggested to reduce the content of organic UV-filters in sunscreen products. In this work, we investigated the feasibility of developing oil-based vehicles with a high sun protection factor (SPF) using pomegranate oil (PMG) and shea oil (BPO) in association with different percentages of organic UV-filters (octyl– methoxycinnamate, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane, and bemotrizinol). We characterized the spreadability, occlusion factor, pH, and required hydrophilic lipophilic balance of the resulting formulations, and did not observe relevant differences due to the incorporation of vegetable oils. The in vitro spectrophotometric determinations of SPF values highlighted that the addition of BPO (1% (w/w)) and PMG (1% (w/w)) resulted in an increase in SPF in comparison with the same formulations that contained only organic UV-filters. The SPF increase was more significant for the formulations that contained lower amounts of organic UV-filters. The results of this study supported the hypothesis that including suitable vegetable oils in sunscreen formulations could be a promising strategy to design products with a lower content of organic UV-filters.
Highlights
The demand for cosmetic products based on natural ingredients is constantly growing, prompting researchers to find new compounds that could fulfil the requirements of consumers
To address the safety issue of organic UV-filters, several researchers performed in vivo toxicity studies from which the margin of safety (MoS) was calculated by comparing the potential human systemic exposure with the no adverse effect level (NOAEL) [10,11]
These studies revealed that the MoS of the investigated sunscreen agents was high enough to guarantee their safety after topical application in humans
Summary
The demand for cosmetic products based on natural ingredients is constantly growing, prompting researchers to find new compounds that could fulfil the requirements of consumers. To address the safety issue of organic UV-filters, several researchers performed in vivo toxicity studies from which the margin of safety (MoS) was calculated by comparing the potential human systemic exposure with the no adverse effect level (NOAEL) [10,11] These studies revealed that the MoS of the investigated sunscreen agents was high enough to guarantee their safety after topical application in humans. The use of vegetable oils with photoprotective activity in sunscreen formulations would allow for decreasing the amounts of organic UV-filters, reducing the safety concerns and fulfilling the consumer demand for more natural products. Pomegranate and shea oil were incorporated into oil-based vehicles containing different percentages of organic UV-filters, and the technological properties as well as in vitro SPF values of the resulting cosmetic formulations were assessed
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