Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Skin Depigmentation Activity of Crocus sativus Extract Cream

Naveed Akhtar¹, Haji Muhammad Shoaib Khan¹, Shoaib Ashraf¹, Imran Shair Mohammad² , Atif Ali³

¹Department of Pharmacy, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan; ²Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 210009, PR China; ³Department of Pharmacy, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad 22060, Pakistan.

For correspondence:- Imran Mohammad Email: imranshairmohammad@gmail.com Tel:+923458012087

Received: 12 June 2013 Accepted: 7 September 2014 Published: 24 November 2014

Citation: Akhtar N, Khan HM, Ashraf S, Mohammad IS, Ali A. Skin Depigmentation Activity of Crocus sativus Extract Cream. Trop J Pharm Res 2014; 13(11):1803-1808 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v13i11.5

© 2014 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To determine the antioxidant activity of Crucus sativus extract and its effect on human skin using a non-invasive probe mexameter.

Methods: The antioxidant activity of C. sativus extract was determined using DPPH method. Water in oil (w/o) topical cream of C. sativus extract (3 %) was formulated and compared with the base (cream without extract). Both creams (formulation and base) were applied to the cheeks of 10 healthy human volunteers for a period of 8 weeks. Melanin and erythema values of skin were measured with a mexameter.

Results: The antioxidant activity of the extract was 81 %. Change in the levels of skin melanin and erythema was -24.04 ± 3.23 and -13.57 ± 2.28, respectively, indicating that unlike the base, the formulation containing Crocus sativus extract produced significant (p ≤ 0.05) depigmentation and anti erythemic effect on human skin.

Conclusion: Application of the formulation containing 3 % C. sativus extract to human skin may be useful in the management of melanoma. However, further studies are still required to ascertain this.

Keywords: Antioxidant, Crocus sativus, Cream, Skin, Melanin, Erythema, Depigmentation