In addition to attracting attention from across the bar, your bold cherry red lipstick may also protect you from annoying infections.
A Spanish research team has produced lipstick laced with cranberries that can guard against viruses, including the flu, Covid, and even Ebola.
Utilizing the fruit’s polyphenols, which can deactivate viruses by changing proteins in their membranes, this method deactivates viruses.
As specialists anticipate that Covid will continue to circulate in the community for years, along with other annual threats such as the flu, scientists hope the lipstick can serve as a fashionable alternative to a mask indoors.
Previous research on cranberry extract is limited, but investigations have demonstrated that it possesses anti-microbial capabilities, prompting researchers to examine it more.
Researchers from Madrid discovered in 2020 that cranberries had an antimicrobial effect on microorganisms that might cause gum infections.
In 2012, Australian researchers found that cranberry juice protected against Staphylococcus aureus, an infection-causing bacteria that approximately 30 percent of people carry in their noses.
More research conducted by Canadian experts revealed that cranberry juice inhibited two additional viruses.
The therapeutic qualities of cranberries are attributable to the fruit’s polyphenols, which interact with the membranes of viruses and modify their glycoproteins, rendering them completely inactive.
It has also been demonstrated that the berry is highly effective against E. coli and Candida albicans.
Researchers from Saint Vincent Martyr Catholic University in Valencia combined cranberry extract with shea butter, vitamin E, provitamin B5, babassu oil, and avocado oil to create a deep red lipstick hue.
They evaluated their concoction by putting it in Petri dishes containing various viruses, bacteria, and an infection-causing fungus known as Candida albicans.
The lipstick mixture was tested on two dummy viruses, one simulating Covid, flu, Ebola, and herpes, and the other representing hepatitis A, polio, and norovirus.
Non-enveloped viruses lack a membrane, whereas wrapped viruses possess one.
The researchers found that the lipstick inhibited both viral variants in less than a minute, which was much less time than any other previously published study on antimicrobial lipstick.
Mycobacteria, a multidrug-resistant bacteria, and the fungus were severely weakened within five hours of treatment.
The team of researchers hopes that their work contributes to existing studies on preventing the spread of pathogens and diseases and contributes to the development of natural antibacterial cosmetics.
The results were published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces journal.
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