Booth Id:
BMED051
Category:
Biomedical Engineering
Year:
2016
Finalist Names:
Shu, Li Ying
Abstract:
Over-sweating is a very common problem of many people especially during summer, while antiperspirant is a vital tool for people to alleviate this problem. However, using commercially available antiperspirant may lead to health problems such as allergy and breast cancer. Therefore, the use of different plant species in making natural antiperspirant CKS was investigated.
Sweat reducing effect, permeability to air after spraying, and the antimicrobial effect of CKS natural antiperspirant were tested. CKS with spearmint and aloe vera was found to be effective in reducing sweat for more than 80% of the volunteers participated in the test, in which 86% of the girls and 71% of the boys claimed that CKS had a better effect than the commercially available one. It was concluded that CKS could effectively prevent sweating without blocking pores on skin. As spearmint contains 0.5% of menthol and menthol is known to be able to activate cold receptor (TRPM8) within our skin even at room temperature (25°C), it contributed to the sweat reducing effect of CKS. Tagetes erecta, another ingredient of CKS natural antiperspirant, has been demonstrated to be effective in inhibiting bacterial growth in previous literature. However, it was found in our experiment that its flowers did not show better antimicrobial function than that of spearmint.
To conclude, the ingredients of CKS natural antiperspirant were found to be considerably effective in reducing sweat. Also, the success of using harmless natural substances in making antiperspirant supports environmentally friendly production that costs less to the environment and our pockets.