Study of the antioxidant capacity of fullerenes C60 in cosmetic formulations

Abstract

Abstract– Nowadays, there is an increasing number of commercial skin care cosmetics that claim to contain fullerenes (C60) as antioxidant agents [1]. The properties of these products have been evaluated using human fibroblast and keratinocyte cell lines. However, there are no studies evaluating their antioxidant properties in vitro when incorporated into a cosmetic formulation. The present work evaluates the antioxidant capacity of fullerenes (C60) in a cosmetic base formulation in a dermal fibroblast (HDFa) cell line. To modify its highly hydrophobic character, fullerenol C60 (OH)n ⋅ mH2O was synthesised from pure C60 and incorporated into a cosmetic formulation as an active ingredient at concentrations of 0. 2 and 0.5 % w/w. Preliminary results show that the cell viability of HDFa fibroblasts was not affected by treatments at concentrations of 0.1 and 0.5 mg/ml. With reference to its antioxidant properties, the DPPH inhibition test showed that there were no significant effects when fullerenol was incorporated into the cosmetic base formulation as an active ingredient at concentrations of 31.25, 62.5 and 125 μg/ml. However, in the cellular antioxidant capacity test, a tendency to reduce the production of reactive oxygen species was observed when fullerenol was incorporated as an active in the base formulation at both 0.2% and 0.5%, demonstrating its antioxidant potential.