• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.115-120
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• 2010

The formidable barrier property of the stratum cornemum and the high hydrophilicity of active ingredient make it difficult to permeate through the skin and reach to its site of action. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of chemical penetration enhancers on the skin permeation of a hydrophilic cosmetic active ingredient, such as arbutin. The enhancing effects of N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) on the permeation of a hydrophilic cosmetic active ingredient were evaluated by using Franz diffusion cell. The study indicated that NMP has considerable influence on the skin permeability. NMP was not only the most effective enhancer but also increased the skin permeability of arbutin approximately 1.3~1.5 fold compared with control without penetration enhancer. The lag time did not change with NMP, which suggested no effect of NMP on skin lipid fluidity. This suggest that arbutin co-permeated with NMP. The results indicate NMP is effective enhancer of a hydrophilic cosmetic active ingredient in penetration, with potential applications for drug delivery system.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.455-460
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• 2012

Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) hydrogel has been studied as an important drug delivery system due to its volume transition or temperature-responsive swelling properties, whose phase separation temperature is similar to the body temperature. However, because of hydrophilic PNIPAM, hydrophobic drugs are difficult to be uniformly loaded in the networks. Antioxidant alpha-lipoic acid (LA) can be prepared as a polymer(polylipoic acid, PLA) by ring opening polymerization, which is hardly developed as a material due to its low molecular weight and easy depolymerization. To overcome this limitation, a hydrophobic active ingredient, LA was reacted with NIPAM into stable hydrogels. Simple thermal radical reaction successfully resulted in a hydrogel (PNIPAM/PLA), which was confirmed by DSC, FTIR, and Raman spectroscopy. The PNIPAM/PLA showed temperature-responsive properties, and their volume swelling decreased with an increase in lipoic acid content. These hydrogels can carry hydrophobic drugs with PNIPAM and the hydrogels could be useful as final drug delivery systems having lipoic acid as an antioxidant.