Fermentation technology and cosmetic plant materials
Development Status and Trends

1.1 Fermentation technology application status and trends
Fermentation technology has a long history, as early as thousands of years ago, people began to engage in the production of wine, sauce, cheese and so on. Due to the microbial fermentation industry has the advantages of low investment, quick results, low pollution, efficient expression, etc., it has become an important part of the global economy.

Fermentation technology has been widely used in different industrial fields play an important role, such as the pharmaceutical industry, food industry, energy industry, chemical industry, agriculture, environmental protection, etc., and with the continuous progress of biological sciences and biotechnology, the application of fermentation technology is also expanding.

1.2 Cosmetic plant raw materials development status and trends
With the progress of science and technology and the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, the pursuit of green, natural and healthy cosmetics is increasing. As the active ingredients from natural green plants just follow this trend, plant-based active ingredients of natural beauty products by the majority of consumers.

“Green, back to nature,” the consumer point of view has also become the mainstream of the cosmetics industry, which also led to the efficacy of raw materials from plants has become a hot spot in the field of cosmetic raw materials research. Therefore, the development of cosmetic plant efficacy raw materials has a broad application value and market prospects.

However, only limited to the extraction of efficacy active ingredients from natural plants, to a certain extent, restricts its application effect and application scope. For example, the efficacy of the obtained plant efficacy raw materials may sometimes be difficult to meet the actual needs; in addition, some plant efficacy ingredients may also have certain side effects.

Therefore, finding different preparation methods to obtain efficient and safe plant efficacy raw materials has become the focus of attention of the majority of researchers. It is found that fermentation technology provides a good technical means to realize this goal.

Fermentation technology in cosmetics plant raw materials
The application of fermentation technology in the development of cosmetic plant raw materials

In recent years, a large number of research results show that fermentation technology in the development of cosmetic plant efficacy raw materials have good prospects for application. First of all, the green and natural plant resources themselves contain rich biomass resources, which provide unlimited possibilities for the application of fermentation technology. In addition, fermentation technology has unique advantages in enhancing the efficacy of plant raw materials and reducing toxic side effects.

2.1 Enriching plant efficacy components and improving efficacy
Plant active ingredients, such as vitamins, amino acids, minerals, polysaccharides, flavonoids, polyphenols and so on, usually have good moisturizing, whitening, sensitization and delayed aging effects.

However, due to the limitations of extraction solvents, processes and preparation methods, the efficacy of plant extracts prepared by traditional processes is sometimes difficult to meet expectations. Numerous studies have shown that fermentation of plant raw materials can enrich the effective nutrients and improve the efficacy.

Rhodiola rosea, as a high-quality plant resource, has a wide range of applications in cosmetic plant efficacy raw materials. Its main active substance is rhodioloside.

Li Ying et al. compared the content of rhodiola rosea glycosides in Rhodiola rosea extract and Rhodiola rosea fermentation broth, and quantified the content of rhodiola glycosides by HPLC. The results showed that the content of rhodiola glycosides in Rhodiola rosea fermentation broth was 2.39%, and that in Rhodiola rosea extract was 1.61%, and the content of rhodiola glycosides, which is an active ingredient of Rhodiola rosea, was increased by about 48.45% through microbial fermentation.

Soy isoflavones are flavonoids, a class of secondary metabolites formed during the growth process of soybeans, and are a kind of biologically active substances, which are mainly of two types: free type and glycosidic type. In fermented soy milk, soy isoflavones mainly exist in free form, while in unfermented soy milk, glycosidic isoflavones predominate.

Studies have shown that free isoflavones are more bioactive than glycosidic isoflavones, so the bioavailability of fermented soy milk is much higher than that of unfermented soy milk.

Red ginseng is a type of traditional Chinese medicine and belongs to the Umbelliferae family, Wucaceae. Some researchers have identified new ginsenosides in red ginseng that have not been found in white ginseng.

Ginsenosides induce antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and catalase, which are important for maintaining cellular viability.Hyun-SunLe et al. found that fermented red ginseng had higher levels of glyoxylates, polyphenols and flavonoids, as well as higher antioxidant, and had an increased content of ginsenoside metabolites, compared to red ginseng. Therefore, the anti-wrinkle and whitening effects of fermented red ginseng were improved.

Zhai Feihong et al. studied the effects of solid-state fermentation of Agaricus blazei on the main nutrients of grains. The total phenol, amino acid nitrogen, water-soluble protein and reducing sugar contents of grains were positively correlated with the fermentation time, and the prolongation of the fermentation time was favorable to the significant increase of the contents of these nutrients in the fermentation products.

Through microbial transformation technology, Feng et al. substantially increased the number of phenolic hydroxyl groups in the traditional Chinese medicine safflower and improved the antioxidant property and bioavailability of safflower.

The results of a large number of literature research show that high-quality plant resources can effectively enrich the efficacy components by adopting appropriate fermentation methods, which is of great significance in solving the problem of insufficient efficacy in the development of cosmetic plant raw materials.

2.2 Can reduce the toxic side effects
Most of the plant resources are rich in nutrients, active substance composition is complex, many plant components have certain toxic side effects, which seriously affects the effective use of plant resources.

Through microbial transformation technology, a single toxic substance contained in plants is used as the substrate for microbial action, and through the participation of enzymes, biotransformation is carried out to get the transformation product modified by specific parts, which is less toxic than the toxic substance in the original plants, ensuring the safety of use.

Studies have shown that ginseng has immunostimulating activity. It is well known that immune response plays an important role in host defense mechanism, but it may also cause toxicity, skin allergy.

Hyun-SunLee et al. found that fermented red ginseng inhibited tyrosinase activity and elastase activity more effectively than unfermented red ginseng. In a skin sensitization test, the irritation sensitization rate of fermented red ginseng was significantly lower than that of unfermented red ginseng. Meanwhile, a high dose of unfermented red ginseng (10%) showed toxicity, while fermented red ginseng showed lower toxicity.

Chen He et al. used the dregs of traditional Chinese medicine as the main raw material and cultivated Ganoderma lucidum solid mycelium by solid fermentation method, which contained rich bioactive components (Ganoderma lucidum mycelial polysaccharides, Ganoderma lucidum triterpenoids and proteins, etc.), with a low content of heavy metals and low toxicity and side effects.

Strychnine is the dried mature seeds of Strychnaceae, which has certain medicinal value, but has certain toxicity, limiting its application as a high-quality plant resource. Pan Yang et al. solidly fermented strychnine using 2O species of fungi such as Sophora japonica, Ganoderma lucidum, and Monkey’s head, and under certain biotechnology-controlled conditions, the contents of toxic substances were all significantly decreased, while the active ingredients were improved to different degrees.

Numerous studies have shown that toxic substances can be reduced to a certain extent by microbial fermentation of plant raw materials, which is of great significance for solving the problem of adverse reactions encountered in the development of plant efficacy raw materials for cosmetics from plant resources.

Conclusion

The application of plant efficacy components in cosmetic raw materials has a broad market prospect, but most of the active ingredients in plants have a low content, and the separation of the extracted products from the original plant by extraction methods is a serious waste of resources and high extraction costs; chemical synthesis requires a multi-step reaction, and some active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine are difficult to synthesize by chemical synthesis, even if the synthesis has the drawbacks of many by-products and poor reactivity specificity. Microbial fermentation technology, can utilize microorganisms.

Microbial fermentation technology can make use of microbial cells or intracellular enzyme-catalyzed reaction system to modify and modify the structure of the active substances in plant raw materials, so as to obtain valuable products (enrichment of efficacy and reduction of toxic side effects).

At the same time, microbial fermentation technology has the advantages of non-pollution and low energy consumption. Therefore, fermentation technology can play an important role in the development of cosmetic plant efficacy raw materials.