Nova Paint: development of non-toxic face paint from microalgae as natural pigments and persicaria odorata as natural preservative

Face painting is popular for various purposes such as recreational, educational, religious, cultural and entertainment. The practice backdated from Paleolithic times, used for ritual purposes. Nowadays, school student use face painting in art, craft, performance and demonstrations. The aim for the preparation of non-synthetic face paint is to develop washable and non-toxic paint for applying colours to human skin. It must be safe, washable and removable. Paint pigment is mainly based on acrylic paints that has strong adhesive power which lead to complex cleaning process and irritant to human skin. Traditionally, face paint produced from toxic, synthetic colour pigment made of substances such as arsenic, mercury and lead. The utilization of microalgae as natural colours is a result of growing knowledge of the negative effects of synthetic colourants. Algae contains a wide range of photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll, carotenoids, and phycobili-proteins, which exhibit colours ranging from green, blue, yellow, brown, and red. An alga is not a plant, animal or fungi, but called phytoplankton. It has beneficial biological activities such as antioxidant, anti-microbial and classified as non-toxic and approved as GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) by the Food and Drug (FDA) of United States of America. Persicaria odorata (Kesom Leaf) extract used as natural preservative. The formulation requires homogenizing the ingredients of both oil phase and water phase. This formulation is feasible which resulted well in both chemical and physical stability which conforms to human skin, thus, it is marketable and can be commercialized for everyone.