Capsaicin Compounding
- Melissa Giachetti
- Mar 8, 2017
- 1 min read
Today were compounded both a capsaicin gel and ointment. Capsaicin is used as a topical analgesic. From yesterday's spectrophotometry, we calculated the % w/w in all three capsaicin extracts. We decided to use the extract with the greatest % w/w and also the easiest extract to work with. The capsaicin smells like hot sauce. I'm not too sure if I would want to rub either of the formulations on myself. I like the ointment better, mostly due to the use of menthol, camphor and eucalyptus oil. These three additives gave the ointment a great smell! It was fun to compound a gel and ointment. It was a little difficult for the extract to mix into the ointment. We had to add a solubilizing agent, triethanolamine, to break the extract down. We also got to use the homogenizer to make our mixture homogenous. After all our hard work we made great products. Maybe I would use the ointment after all!
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