Formulation and Quality Assessments of Topical Herbal Cream Incorporated with Piper sarmentosum Aqueous Extract

Herbal plants are in widespread use for medical purpose and the development of natural products. Yet, the quality of natural products continues to possess a great challenge for the during development process. Piper sarmentosum aqueous extract has been scientifically demonstrated to have wound healing activity using in vivo model. Hence, this research
mainly emphasized on the formulation of topical herbal cream with incorporation of P. sarmentosum aqueous extract and natural ingredients. An optimized formulation was further
assessed for its quality. Parameters used in the assessments herbal cream formulated included organoleptic and physicochemical characteristic, antibacterial property, total microbial count, stability study and sensory evaluation and sample testing for skin irritation. The result showed that the optimized herbal cream exhibited good physical properties with strong scent of extract. However, antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus was not found in the herbal cream formulated. The herbal cream formulated was also found to be highly contaminated with 1.0 x104 cfu/g which was undesirable. One–month stability study showed that herbal cream formulated was considered stable under cold storage (5C) and room temperature (25C) with no evidence of phase separation nor significant change of odour, texture and pH values. Significant variation in colour (p<0.05) was observed after 1 week storage at 5C and after 4 weeks storage at 25C. The formulation was physically unstable at temperature as high as 40C. The results of the consumers’ testing (N=50) demonstrated that
the herbal cream formulated had a rather high degree of preference among the respondents and it was non-irritant for skin. Future research are necessary to evaluate efficacy of the cream in wound healing activity. Optimistically, this study could contribute to the future development of natural wound healing cream.