Hippophae Rhamnoides Extract, commonly known as sea buckthorn extract, is a natural ingredient derived from the Hippophae rhamnoides (Sea buckthorn) plant. This extract is renowned for its content of vitamins, antioxidants, and essential fatty acids such as omega-3, omega-6, omega-7, and omega-9. It is widely used in cosmetic formulations for its moisturizing, regenerative, and protective properties, helping to improve skin health, combat oxidative stress, and protect the skin from environmental damage.
Chemical Composition and Structure
Sea buckthorn extract is rich in vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids, and flavonoids, which are potent antioxidants. These compounds help neutralize free radicals, preventing premature aging and promoting cell regeneration. The essential fatty acids present in the extract support skin hydration, improve elasticity, and strengthen the skin's protective barrier.
Physical Properties
Sea buckthorn extract typically appears as a yellow liquid due to its high carotenoid content. It is oil-soluble and used in a wide range of skincare products, including creams, lotions, serums, and facial oils. Its light texture and easy absorption into the skin make it ideal for daily formulations, providing hydration without leaving a greasy residue.
Production Process
This extract is primarily obtained through cold pressing or supercritical CO2 extraction processes to preserve the richness of its bioactive compounds. These methods help maintain the regenerative and antioxidant properties of the extract, ensuring a high-quality final product.
Harvesting the Fruit: Hippophae rhamnoides fruits are harvested when ripe. It is essential to follow sustainable harvesting practices to ensure the quality of the plant material.
Cleaning and Preparation: After harvesting, the fruits are cleaned to remove dirt, residues, and impurities. This step is crucial to ensure that the final extract is of high quality.
Drying: The cleaned fruits may undergo a drying process to remove moisture. This helps preserve the active properties and facilitates subsequent extraction.
Extraction: The extraction of active principles occurs using appropriate solvents, such as water, ethanol, or methanol. The dried fruits are immersed in the solvent, and the mixture is agitated or heated to promote the release of bioactive compounds.
Filtration: Once the extraction process is complete, the obtained solution is filtered to remove undissolved solids, resulting in a liquid extract containing the active principles of Hippophae rhamnoides.
Concentration: The extract may be further concentrated by evaporating the solvent to obtain a product richer in nutrients and with greater stability.
Quality Control and Packaging: Finally, Hippophae rhamnoides extract undergoes quality control checks to verify its purity, efficacy, and compliance with standards. After analysis, it is packaged for distribution and use in cosmetic products and dietary supplements.
Applications
Skincare: Thanks to its regenerative and moisturizing properties, sea buckthorn extract is ideal for treating dry, mature, or damaged skin. It helps improve skin elasticity, reduce signs of aging, and promote cell regeneration.
Anti-aging Products: The high antioxidant content makes this extract perfect for anti-aging formulations, helping to protect the skin from free radical damage and reduce the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines.
Repair and Protective Products: Its soothing and protective properties make it ideal for treating stressed or irritated skin, promoting healing and strengthening the skin barrier.
INCI Functions:
Fragrance. It plays a very important role in the formulation of cosmetic products as it provides the possibility of enhancing, masking or adding fragrance to the final product, increasing its marketability. It is able to create a perceptible pleasant odour, masking a bad smell. The consumer always expects to find a pleasant or distinctive scent in a cosmetic product.
Skin conditioning agent. It is the mainstay of topical skin treatment as it has the function of restoring, increasing or improving skin tolerance to external factors, including melanocyte tolerance. The most important function of the conditioning agent is to prevent skin dehydration, but the subject is rather complex and involves emollients and humectants that can be added in the formulation.
CAS: 90106-68-6 290-292-8
Health and Safety Considerations
Safety in Use
Sea buckthorn extract is generally considered safe for use in cosmetic products. No significant side effects are known, and it is well tolerated by most skin types. Major regulatory authorities, such as the European Union and the FDA, approve the use of sea buckthorn extract in skincare products.
Allergic Reactions
Allergic reactions to this extract are rare, but it is always recommended to perform a patch test before using products containing sea buckthorn, especially for people with sensitive or reactive skin.
Toxicity and Carcinogenicity
It is considered a safe and beneficial ingredient for skin health, thanks to its nourishing, antioxidant, and regenerative properties.
Environmental Considerations
Sea buckthorn extract is obtained from a renewable and sustainable resource. The sea buckthorn plant is resilient and can grow in harsh environments, reducing the need for pesticides and other harmful chemicals, making it an environmentally friendly and sustainable ingredient.
Regulatory Status
Sea buckthorn extract is approved for use in cosmetic products by major regulatory authorities, including the European Union and the FDA in the United States. It is widely used in skincare formulations, especially in anti-aging, regenerative,
Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) Studies
From the leaves and berries of the sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is extracted chloroform and n-hexane, components with intense antibacterial activity (1).
It is a rich source of vitamins C and E, carotenoids, flavonoids, anthocyanins, organic acids, amino acids, sterols, triterpenols and isoprenols (2) with an antioxidant activity.
The berries produce an oil containing carotenoids, palmitic, palmitolic and oleic acid, while the seed oil is composed of linoleic, linolenic and oleic acid as main components (3) .
This oil has traditionally been used to improve blood circulation and for the treatment of dermatological problems including wounds, gastritis, peptic ulcers, uterine erosion and inflammatory disorders of the genital organs (4).
Sea buckthorn has significant cardioprotective activity and a positive effects on the healing of the cardiovascular system, including inhibition of platelet activation (in particular platelet aggregation), reduction of cholesterol concentration, blood pressure and antioxidant action (5).
In this study, a positive evaluation of the topical effects on atopic lesions as it improved the severity of dermatitis by reducing epidermal thickness (6).
The results of this study on the extract of Sea buckthorn, provide a basis for affordable, low side-effect therapy for the treatment of psoriasis (7).
Cosmetics
It produces a regenerating effect on the skin produced by carotenoids, vitamin E and unsaturated fats contained in the pulp and seeds.
Other applications
It is placed in foods, candies, to give a particular taste.
Sea buckthorn studies
