Phytochemical Study of Plants of Interest for Cosmetics in Mayotte

This study takes place in a bigger project aiming to identify and to make an inventory of the French Pharmacopeia. Its aim is to identify plants or plant families regularly used in traditional cosmetics in Mayotte. In order to give a direction to the research, two technics where used. At first, the plants and their families used in the pharmacopeia of neighboring regions were inventoried using the literature. The resulting inventory was then compared with the flora of the Mahoran territory. The second technique was the realization of a semi-structured survey with people known for their plant-use knowledge in Mayotte. In order to have significant results, the ethnobotanical survey was done following Trotter & Logan’s protocol. (1986) According to that protocol, the gathered data has to be the following: common name, place of harvest, part used and the posology. Moreover the number of informant has to be big enough in order to integrate the data in several indicators such as: The informant agreement ration (IAR), the fidelity level (FL) and use value (UV). The number of informant was determined based on the population density of the different communes of the island. Another critical factor for this study is the correct identification of each sample. To achieve that when a sample was realized, it was taken twice. One for the analysis, the second sample was pressed and dried so as to enter a herbarium for identification. The last important step of this part of the study is the development of fast technics to establish the samples’ physiological activity. These test will give us qualitative information in order the isolate the plants that show a true potential. The targeted activities and tests being:
- Anti-tyrosinase activity through an inhibition of tyrosinase test.
- Anti-free-radicals activity through the DPPH test.
- Anti-inflammatory activity through an inhibition of lipoxygenase an cyclooxygenase test
The following steps of the study is the complete analysis of the physiologically active plants extracts in order to identify the active molecules. The end of the study will result in the creation of cosmetics originating from Mayotte’s flora. The way the cosmetics will be developed is thought so as it can be easily and durably done in Mayotte allowing this study to have a positive impact on the development of the island.