FORMULATION, CHARACTERIZATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF TOPICAL HERBAL HYDROGEL CONTAINING ALOE VERA, TURMERIC AND MARIGOLD

The investigation of herbal components in topical formulations is a response to the growing desire for natural and effective remedies. The development, modification, and characterization of a topical herbal hydrogel intended for use in dermatological applications are the main objectives of this work. During the formulation procedure, plant extracts of Turmeric, Aloe vera and Marigold were chosen for well-known medicinal properties. Viscosity and spreadability of herbal hydrogel were optimized. Spreadability and viscosity were the response variables that were employed in the design of formulation. The viscosity and spreadability of the optimized formulation were 176000 m Pa. S and 8.25 g.cm/sec respectively. Phytochemical screening confirmed that the active phytoconstituents present in the herbal hydrogel. According to the antioxidant study, the herbal formulation exhibited good radical scavenging activity, reaching up to 78.02%. Attenuated total reflectance infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy revealed that there were no major interactions between the excipients and the herbal drugs. The microstructure of formulated herbal hydrogel was observed using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) imaging, which also showed that the herbal constituents were homogeneously distributed throughout the hydrogel. The hydrogel was also analysed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and average particle size was found to be 16.660 nm. The qualitative and quantitative HPTLC confirmed that herbal ingredients were sufficiently incorporated in the formulation. The antimicrobial study showed considerable effectiveness with zone of inhibition of 1.57 cm against Staphylococcus aureus.