Comparative Effectiveness of Certain Antimicrobial Agents

Cosmetics and topical products need not be sterile but may contain low levels of microbial load during use. This study was conducted to determine effectiveness of antimicrobial preservation during storage life of preparations and particularly the suitability of such preservative in terms of safety and broad spectrum activity. In this study, six formulations of both aqueous and oily cream were prepared under laboratory conditions. Four of these preparations were prepared with either methyl parahydroxybenzoate or chlorocresol as preservative. The remaining two formulations, aqueous and oily creams were without preservative serving as control preparations. All the formulations were subjected to microbial qualitative screening, 24 – 48 hours after formulation. Thereafter, the formulations were challenged with bacteria inocula, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphlococcus aureus (1 x 10 3 and Candida albicans (1 x 10 2 moulds/g/ml). The result shows that there was initial contamination of the control formulations without preservative (P03 and P04) and oily cream preparation with chlorocresol preservative (P06) with Proteus spp, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albricans respectively. Also subjecting the data to statistical inference, (P < 0.05) in