Background: Skin aging is one of the main issues related with skin as each part of body ages with the time, So, to avoid this problem a novel formulation was designed in which citric acid as exfoliating agent will entrapped in thermodynamically stable, lecithin based pluronic organogels. Objectives: The basic purpose of the study is to formulate a non-irritating and biocompatible citric acid loaded lecithin pluronic organogel for the treatment of skin aging. Materials and Methods: All the eight formulations (F1-F8) of lecithin pluronic organogel of citric acid was prepared by fluid filled fiber mechanism with different composition of pluronic f127. The FTIR study was revealed that no interaction observed between the drug and excipients. Among all the formulation F4 showed best results. All the formulation were evaluated through various parameters like Homogeneity test, Washability, pH determination, Viscosity, Spreadability, Drug content. In-vitro drug diffusion, Determination of sun protection factor (SPF) by ultraviolet spectrophotometer, rabbit skin irritation test and free radical scavenging assay. Results: The citric acid PLO formulation F4 exhibited drug content in maximum of 78.60% + 1.30. F4 formulation was the optimize formulation as there is half of the drug is released in 8 hrs. In-vitro drug release was conducted for all formulation shown in 7.4 phosphate buffer and release of citric acid in F4 found to best i.e. 79.57% and spreadability, pH, drug content, viscosity of F4 was found to be 7.85gm2 cm/sec, 7.08±0.176, 78.60% and 20011cp respectively. The SPF value of the F4 was found 13.312 which were under acceptable ranges. Primary irritation index (PII) of all the eight formulations (F1-F8) were showed slight to no skin irritation. F1- F6 formulation showed high in-vitro DPPH radical scavenging activity as compare to BHT and α-tocopherol. By studying all evaluation parameter F4 formulation was found to be best optimized. Conclusion: Study concluded that for topical delivery of citric acid PLO was the good delivery system and showed a good anti-ageing property as well.
Key words: Citric Acid, Pluronic Lecithin Organogel, Skin Aging, Topical Delivery, Primary Irritation Index.