Delivery of niacinamide to the skin using microneedle-like particles

Abstract

The word ‘cosmeceutical’ is used to address products that improve the beauty of the user while also having health benefits. However, the skin’s stratum corneum greatly obstructs the delivery of the active ingredients found in cosmeceutical goods to the skin. Chemical peels and microbeads have been employed to overcome the stratum corneum but these methods can cause side effects and are not environmental friendly. On the other hand, microneedles do not encompass the aforementioned dangers but currently they are only available as patches which make them unsuitable to be used with products that are usually applied onto a large area of the skin. Therefore, this study aimed in developing microneedle-like particles (MLP) whose needles would disrupt the skin during the rubbing of the structure onto the skin. A modified approach from conventional micromolding techniques was employed to make the MLPs and experimental results have shown to have the required mechanical strength. Furthermore, the MLP was able to increase the skin permeability of two fluorescent dyes and niacinamide depending on the applied time and the number of MLPs. Cryosectioned porcine slices have also confirmed the ability of MLPs to enhance skin permeability by revealing a deeper penetration of the applied fluorescent dye. Altogether, the results demonstrated the potential of MLPs to be used as safe skin permeability enhancers that can be rubbed all over the skin.