Relationship between liquid crystalline phase stability and ingredient composition in liquid crystal oil–water emulsion

ABSTRACT

In this study, we postulated that the optical retardation magnitude could be used to evaluate the stability of the LC phase through the Mueller matrix polarimeter method in LC emulsion. In addition, we found that the increase of cetearyl alcohol concentration induced the more periodic dense lattice structure in crystalline phase of LC lamellae and the sorbitan olivate was relatively more responsible for higher ordering in LC phase compared to C12–20 alkyl glucoside in terms of molecular parallel packing on the basis of the optical retardation magnitude. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the LC emulsion had higher skin barrier function owing to lower TEWL and higher reflectance than ordinary emulsion on human skin and maintained a uniform phase without phase separation for 8 weeks.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystal emulsion
• optical retardation
• Muller matrix polarimeter
• LC phase stability
• reflectance
• moisturising effect
• storage stability

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant from the World Class 300 Project, Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA), Republic of Korea (Grant no. 2341055).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a grant from the World Class 300 Project, Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA), Republic of Korea: [Grant number 2341055].