Development of skin care and hair essence products using Camellia japonica L. leaf extracts and seed oils

Camellia japonica has gained many attentions because of cosmetic and medicinal ingredients in its leaf and seed. Thus C. japonica has been selected as a representative plant for commercial growth in Jeonnam region nowadays. In this presentation C. japonica L. has been used as a main functional raw material to make a skin care and hair essence product. C. japonica L. leaf extracts were used to prepare skin care products and seed oil for hair essence products. Based on clinical trials, skin care product showed an acne diminishing activities in 4 weeks and hair essence product for a hair cuticle recovering activities. These activities are considered to stem from several ingredients in camellia leaf and seed. To elucidate the skin effect, firstly, antioxidant activity assays were performed. For hydroxyl radical scavenging activity hot water extracts of camellia leaf showed better activity than that of 40% ethanol extracts. Several kinds of flavonoids such as quercetin and kaempferol as well as polyphenols such as (-)-Epicatechin (EC) and (-)-Epicatechin gallate (ECG) have been found in hot water extracts of Camellia japonica leaf. The average amounts are as follows: quercetin (46.165 mg/L), kaempferol (156.273 mg/L) and (-)-Epicatechin (EC) (21.266 mg/L), (-)-Epicatechin gallate (ECG) (7.019 mg/L). Next the antimicrobial activities were tested using ampicillin as a standard antibiotic. Comparing a clear zone diameter, hot water extracts of camellia leaf showed 56% of 100 μg/mL ampicillin. The ethyl acetate fraction showed less activity than that of water fractions throughout this study. For hair recovering effect, the oil composition of seed oil has been considered to play an important role. As a control experiment, olive oil was used to prepare the formula and the effect was less than using camellia seed oil. By comparing the oil compositions of olive and camelia oils, the amount of unsaturated fatty acids was different which might be crucial in hair cuticle recovery. As a result, the skin and hair cosmetic formula showed good stability with no change of color and appearance for several months. In summary, C. japonica L. and seed could be valuable raw materials for cosmetic applications and further studies including the purification of an effective single compound should be done before commercializing this kind of botanical products.