A potential tocopherol acetate loaded palm oil esters-in-water nanoemulsions for nanocosmeceuticals

BACKGROUND Cosmeceuticals are cosmetic-pharmaceutical hybrids intended to enhance health and beauty of the skin. Nanocosmeceuticals use nano-sized system for the delivery of active ingredients to the targeted cells for better penetration. In this work, nanoemulsion from palm oil esters was developed as a delivery system to produce nanocosmeceuticals. The stability of the resulting formulation was tested using various methods. In addition, the effect of components i.e. Vitamin E and Pluronic F-68 on the formulation was also studied. RESULTS Both vitamin E and Pluronic F-68 were found to co-emulsify and co-stabilized the formulations. The best formulation was found to be the one having the composition of 10% Palm Oil Esters (POEs), 10% vitamin E, 24% Tween 80, 2.4% Pluronic F-68 and 53.6% deionised water. Those compositions are considered to be the best as a nanocosmeceutical product due to the small particle size (94.21 nm), low occurrence of Ostwald ripening and stable at different storing temperatures (5, 25 and 45 degrees C) for four weeks. CONCLUSIONS Palm oil esters-in-water nanoemulsions loaded with vitamin E was successfully formulated and has the potential for the use as nanocosmeceuticals.