The cranberry is a fruit that grows in acidic peaty soils in the colder regions of the northern hemisphere. When cranberries are ripe, they will grow into bright red oval berries of two to five centimetres. The taste is mainly sour but with a sweet taste. It can be combined with other types of food to add a refreshing and delicious feeling. Its unique color will not change color even after various dishes, and the taste will not be different. Cranberry has increasingly become an indispensable food supplement on the table in western countries.
Cranberry extract also contains the super-popular antioxidant "proanthocyanidin", which can prevent cell damage and maintain the health and vitality of cells through its special antioxidant capacity and the condition of free muscle scavenger. Some well-known foreign cosmetics companies have even developed a technology that combines with cosmetics and skin care products, using the antibacterial and water-retaining properties of cranberries, combined with whitening products, to develop a new generation of herbal cosmetics.
Researchers Alberto Doan-Molina, Alba Cano-Vicente and Angel Serrano-Aroca published a study in the journal ASC Applied Materials and Interfaces, the report said. , they were able to reduce microbial colonies in samples of moisturizing lip balm bases containing cranberry extract. Their research was funded by the Faculty of St. Vincent Martin of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valencia and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the race to find materials that could help limit or avoid the spread of 2019-nCoV, while infections from multidrug-resistant bacteria and fungi are now a serious threat," the authors wrote in the report. In this study, we developed a novel biobased lipstick containing cranberry extract, which inactivates a variety of microorganisms."
The study showed that the growth of fungal and bacterial colonies was greatly reduced in the tested samples containing the cranberry extract.
"In the current era of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly resistant microbes, this antimicrobial lipstick provides a means of targeting a wide variety of microbes—including enveloped and non-enveloped viruses, bacteria, and fungi— — a new form of protection.
The team mixed cranberry extract powder into a lipstick base that contained shea butter, vitamin E, provitamin B5, babassu oil, and avocado oil. In the experiments, the reddened ointment was added to cultures containing different viruses, bacteria and a type of fungus. Both enveloped and non-enveloped virus types were completely inactivated within one minute of contact with cranberry-containing ointment.
Multi-drug resistant bacteria, mycobacteria and fungi are essentially inactivated within 5 hours of application of the cream. Researchers say their new lipstick formula can provide protection against a variety of disease-causing microbes.
