CHITIN-NANOFIBRILS: A NEW ACTIVE COSMETIC CARRIER

Summary The cosmetic industry has evolved over the last 50 to 60 years from an era of secret formulas, elusi-ve promises and false hope to an entirely new industry based on science. No longer are the cosmeticgiants isolated scions, but there is an ever growing interactions and interdependence among cosme-ceutical, pharmaceutical, biochemical, and medical community. Thus new development has been suc-cessfully translated into more effective treatments as well as preventive treatments of dry or agingskin, as example.At this purpose, active compounds of new cosmetic products has to be carefully selected to obtainthe best efficacy and safeness. Thus innovative cosmetics have become more sophisticated in bothformulations and presentation meanwhile new tests have been developed to ensure not only quanlityand safety but also the validation of products claims.Different in vitro and in vivo tests are reported to show the capacity of chitin nanofibrils to be usedboth as penetration enhancer and active compound as anti-ageing agent.