Study on the application and performance of liquid crystal emulsion system in sunscreen products

ABSTRACT

Liquid crystal (LC) emulsion is a new emulsion system which has excellent application potential in the field of cosmetics. In this study, the LC emulsifier and traditional emulsifier were used to prepare the emulsions containing different types of sunscreen agents, respectively. The microstructure, sunscreen performance and rheological properties of the emulsions were studied systematically. The results showed that the formation of LC structure was not affected by sunscreen agents. LC structure can also enhance the sunscreen property of the emulsion as well as improve the sensory property. Further, we combined different sunscreen agents to prepare LC sunscreen emulsion. The sunscreen performance and repair effectiveness of emulsion were evaluated by human test. The results showed that LC sunscreen emulsion has an increased SPF value from 56 to 70 compared to non-LC sunscreen emulsion. Meanwhile, the LC structure also enhanced the moisturising properties of the emulsion, and the TEWL value of LC emulsion and non-LC emulsion was 67.4% and 96.5%, respectively. In addition, LC sunscreen emulsion has higher safety and better storage stability. In conclusion, this study provided the practical application of LC emulsion systems as well as the important guidance for developing excellent sunscreen emulsions.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystal emulsion
• sunscreen
• moisture retention
• safety performance
• storage stability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Bei Feng: conceptualisation, methodology, investigation, writing – original draft. Cheng liang Li: conceptualisation, methodology. Yazhuo Shang: writing – review & editing, funding acquisition. Zhicheng Ye: methodology, investigation, validation, Honglai Liu: writing – review & editing.

Data availability statement

All data underlying the results are available as part of the article and no additional source data are required.

Ethical statement

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Ethics Committee of Fengxian District Central Hosp (Approval number: SL2024-KY-15). All volunteers were consented by an informed consent process that was reviewed by the Ethics Committee of Ethics Committee of Fengxian District Central Hosp and certified that the study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02678292.2024.2361285

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [No. 22308094] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant [2022ZFJH004, 222201717003].