Abstract

Cellulite is an aesthetic defect on the skin of the buttocks and upper thighs. It affects 80-90% of women & it can influence their quality of life. There are no treatments for cellulite however there are various interventions that claim to be effective.
The purpose of this research was: (a) to conduct a user-trial investigating the most effective treatment of cellulite among 3 non-invasive interventions (dry brushing, exercise and cream); (b) the evidence-based design of a novel topical anti-cellulite cream using active-containing nanocarriers; and (c) the in vitro and in vivo evaluation of the safety and efficacy of the novel anti-cellulite cream.
The user trial was conducted in 9 volunteers as part of the BBC1 study “The truth about looking good”. Photonumeric evaluation before & after five weeks of intervention showed a total average improvement of 25.8% in the dry brushing group, 12.7% in exercise and 14.7% in the cream group. It
was therefore concluded that for the short-term treatment of cellulite, dry brushing was the most effective amongst the 3 interventions.
Four 100g each oil-in-water creams and their controls (without active) were formulated; the first, labelled model I (1:1 of jojoba and baobab oil) contained a water phase of 80%w/w, oil phase (10%w/w), emulsifier (5%w/w) and active (5%w/w) while the remaining three had an equal % composition of water phase (78%w/w), oil phase (12%w/w), emulsifier (5%w/w) and active (5%w/w), labelled II (1:1 of jojoba and baobab oil), III (1:1 of jojoba and coconut oil) and IV (1:1 of baobab and coconut oil). Short-term stability studies on the creams were performed after 8, 14 and 28 days, under three different storage temperature conditions (4°C, 25°C and 40°C) and at ambient relative humidity.
Quantitative sensory evaluation was performed in three stages; (a) Pick-up – compression/spreadability and stringiness/stretchability (b) Rub-out – spreadability (c) Appearance – skin hydration and viscosity/opaqueness using an original method to directly determine the refractive index. A novel protocol was developed for the correlation of the rheological measurements with the sensorial properties of semisolid formulations. The microbial challenge results revealed the creams were capable of inhibiting bacterial, yeast and fungal growth. The phase separation resistance, pH, microscopic size analysis, globule size and surface charge, suggests that creams containing jojoba with baobab oil may have good shelf-life, especially with samples stored at room temperature, over the
period of measurement.
A new method was devised for the long-term stability of the creams using Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS), which demonstrated that creams with jojoba/baobab oil combinations showed good long-term stability compared to creams containing jojoba with coconut oil, and baobab with coconut oil. This observation was in agreement with the results from the short-term stability studies.
Preliminary blind user-trial studies on 12 volunteers were promising; the active-containing cream was compared against its control and a popular commercial anti-cellulite cream. The best product in terms of quality and efficacy, chosen by the volunteers, was the novel active-containing anti-cellulite cream.