Nonlinear viscoelastic response of natural polysaccharide-based caffeine microcapsules

What is it about?

We always strive to create sustainable ways of delivering beneficial bioactive agents to personal care products. Here, we report a highly effective and eco-friendly caffeine delivery system. Caffeine stimulates hair roots, but needs a reliable carrier so it does not get washed away. We synthesized microcapsules made entirely of natural, plant-based materials like starches and algae extracts, and fortified them with an outer coating of collagen. Upon testing, we found these capsules were incredibly efficient, successfully loading over 75% of the caffeine. Further, instead of releasing the active ingredient all at once, our capsules slowly discharged the caffeine over roughly five hours. This steady, sustained release is ideal for prolonged hair treatments, giving the caffeine plenty of time to absorb into the roots. We also deployed unique strategies to rigorously test the physical strength of our capsules under large-scale mechanical stress, simulating heavy industrial mixing for manufacturing cosmetics and the physical rubbing motion of applying a product to the hair. We noted that our natural microcapsules are astoundingly sturdy and survive these forces. Most importantly, our research provides critical benchmark datasets of microcapsule physical properties under significantly large mechanical deformations. We demonstrate the suitability of natural polymeric materials to build strong, slow-release carriers for highly effective haircare products.

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