Journal of Medicinal Plants Research Vol. 5(19), pp. 4740-4746, 23 September, 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JMPR ISSN 1996-0875 ©2011 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Antimicrobial activity of cashew leaves’ extracts used in cosmetics before and after treatment with activated carbon Siavash Hosseinpour Chermahini* and Fadzilah Adibah Abdul Majid Department of Bioprocess Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Accepted 8 June, 2011 With the increasing concern of public health and consumers’ awareness, non-chemical cosmetics are booming worldwide. Natural ingredients such as cashew leaves extract could be an attractive candidate in cosmetic formulation due to this important criteria that antimicrobial activities could minimise or replace the use of synthetic perservatives in cosmetics. However, the plant extracts are normally dark brown and greenish color that might spoil the appearance of the products if they are added in cosmetic formulation. In order to solve this problem, using activated carbon was conducted to eliminate the intense color of plant extract without affecting the cosmeceutical properties. Ethanol and water extracts of cashew leaves (CL) were compared for the cosmeceutical properties mainly the colour and antimicrobial activities. The system was tested with different concentration of cashew leaves extract (CLE) (5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30%) for solid and liquied form of CLE before treatment with activated carbon and after contact with (10, 15, 20 and 25 g). The study shows that 15 g activated carbon using 20% CL (water) produces microbial activity index of 1.09. Moreover, using a similar system, 25% CL (ethanol) produces microbial activity index (MAI) of 1.00. Key words: Decolorisation, antimicrobial activity, ethanol extract, water extract, cashew leaves, Cosmeceutical. INTRODUCTION Herbs and food plants are heavily consumed in all around the world because of their good taste as well as health benefits. One food plant that is well known for its antimicrobial activities is Anacardium occidentale L. (Cashew). Plants as well as offer biological resources contain antimicrobials and other properties which are important in formulating natural and non-chemical cosmetic products. Thus, making the plant materials highly potential to be developed into cosmetic formulating *Corresponding author. E-mail: siavash_hosseinpoor@yahoo.com. Tel: +6075536778. Fax: +6075536165. H/P: +60177528075. Abbreviations: CL, Cashew leaves; CLE, cashew leaves extract; UV, ultra violet; ROS, reactive oxygen species; L- DOPA, L-3, 4-dihydroxyphenylalanine; DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid; MAI, microbial activity index; GAC, granular activated carbon. ingredients. Decolorisation is one of the approaches that can be applied to removed unwanted colours in the plant extracts. Zemelow and Doby (1958) found that trickling filter plant in some treatment systems were removing between 34 and 44% of the dye colour and that percentage removal of colour for different industrial effluents are different by different biological treatment methods. Removal of phenolic compounds have also been investigated effectively by using lime (Aktas and Ersoy, 2001). A commonly applied method for removal of colour, phenol and organic compounds from industrial effluents is the advanced oxidation processes. However, activated carbon is the most commonly used method of dye removal by adsorption (Nassar and El-geundi, 1991). Cashew leaves extract (CLE) has potential as tyrosinase inhibitor that can be used for therapeutic in pigmentation problem (Kim and Uyama, 2005). Inhibitors of tyrosinase have become increasingly important in medical and cosmetic products. For example, tyrosinase inhibitors are used in depigmentation drugs and