Evaluation of moisturizing lip balm comprise of natural pigment from tomato

Abstract

The abundance of natural and homemade claimed cosmetic products is increasing. However, these products do not undergo any tests for safety to the users. The usage of perishable plants, yet very high in a beneficial active compound like a tomato in the cosmetic product formulation, is very beneficial. Hence, this study focuses on the stability evaluation of tomato lip balm. Before the extraction of tomato starts, heavy metal analysis was conducted on the tomato sample to ensure that the plant source is free from any heavy metal contamination. Three lip balms (X, Y, Z) were formulated and examined for their stability at two different temperatures for four weeks. Finally, a commercial lip balm was used as a reference to compare the physicochemical properties of the formulated lip balms. This study found that the tomato sample used in this study is safe as the heavy metal concentrations are lower than the permitted value by FAO/WHO, which are 0.0015, 73.3 and 0.0981 mg/kg for the mean concentration of cadmium, copper and zinc in tomato respectively. These three lip balms are stable in both temperatures, room temperature (27°C) and refrigerator (4°C), while formulation Z shows the nearest properties with the commercial lip balm resulted in hardness, and pH, 3.16. Thus, tomato could be applied as one of the plant sources in lip balm formulation.