Enhancing Skin Delivery of Liposomes via Flexibility Optimization with Fatty Alcohol Incorporation for Skin Barrier Reinforcement and Brightening

This study aims to enhance the skin delivery of active compounds by evaluating how the incorporation of fatty alcohols into nanoliposomes influences their structural flexibility and propensity to deliver ceramide and niacinamide across the skin barrier. The findings demonstrate that fatty alcohols not only stabilize ceramide, which is prone to crystallization, but also modulate the flexibility of the liposomal membrane by altering the phospholipid bilayer arrangement, thereby influencing the skin penetration efficiency of the liposome vesicles. In vitro studies show that the incorporation of fatty alcohols into the liposomes significantly improves skin permeation; this enables ceramide and niacinamide to penetrate deeper into the stratum corneum layer and results in enhanced strengthening of the skin barrier and improved skin lightening effects. This study makes a significant contribution to advance cosmetic formulations by confirming the flexibility of the newly developed nanoliposome system and rigorously assessing its impact on structural and functional changes in artificial skin.