Isolation of carminic acid from essential oil, its characterization and applications towards replacing toxic colourants used in soaps

Abstract

Wide variety of cosmetics was frequently colored using synthetic coloring agents. They were used despite being harmful due to their brightness and exceptional color clarity. Researchers' attention was drawn to recent experiments that substituted natural colorants with harmful ones. We describe how to include (Miss Current) essential oil (EO) into soap using a straight forward saponification process in this article. It is interesting that the essential oil we added made the soap colored. Carminic acid (CA) was the chemical ingredient in soap that produced the color. From EO, carminic acid was extracted as the sodium salt of carminic acid (NCA), and it was then identified using a variety of spectroscopic methods. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy was used to determine the functional groups in CA. Additionally, the presence of carminic acid (CA) was verified using spectroscopic methods using mass and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Additionally, the antibacterial effectiveness of soap with essential oils was assessed. Additionally, molecular docking studies were used to investigate the affinity of carminic acid (CA) for binding to keratin and alpha-amylase.

Keywords

• Essential oil
• Miss current
• Soap
• Natural colourant
• Carminic acid
• Anti-bacterial activity