Abstract Design and Development of Natural Preservative

Abstract

Personal care products employ a wide variety of chemicals. Preservatives are essential chemicals used in personal care products to prevent microbes from growing. It’s quite common to use a wide variety of preservatives to achieve broad-spectrum protection against mold, fungi, gram positive and gram negative bacteria. These include parabens, formaldehyde releasers, isothiazolinones, and phenoxyethanols. However, formaldehyde releasers are carcinogens and parabens are known endocrine disrupters that affect reproductive health, leading to problems related to fetal growth. An average person gets exposed to a number of such chemicals on a daily basis. This research is an attempt to design and develop safer preservatives through innovative strategies.

There are results for a gram positive bacterium, staphylococcus and E. coli a gram negative bacterium 6 essential oils and 2 lipids were chosen because they had shown to have antimicrobial effects. The six essential oils are: cinnamon, clove, eucalyptus, oregano, thyme and lavender. The two lipids tested are octanoic acid and lauric acid which are fatty acids. The different concentrations tested, were ratios of 1:1. 1:10, 1:100, and 1:1000 each compound was with the organic solvent DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) Data for E. Coli with potassium sorbate, Vitamin E and another essential oil wild orange was obtained. The methods used were similar to that of the Kirby Bauer method, instead of using a sterile paper disc a 5 microliter drop each solution was put directly onto the plate. The size of the incubation zone was measured and used for the data collected.