Abstract

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF NOVEL SELF DEFENCE SPRAY CONTAINING OLEORESIN CAPSICUM

Shital Kamathe*, Ashwini Hunasikatti, Priya Gurav, Madhura Kulkarni, Nagesh C. and Prasanna S. Sutar

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Abstract

In today's generation, protecting oneself has become the most important especially for women, old age and weak people. Pepper spray is good alternative in comparison to other techniques of self defence because of its ease of use. Defence spray causes temporary blindness, burning sensation, inflammation and temporary disability to attacker and allows you to escape from the attack. The present study is planned for development and characterization of novel self defence spray containing oleoresin capsicum as the main irritating agent and chloroform, isopropyl alcohol as carriers. The spray solution prepared in this study do not require costly chemical irritants. Use of natural oleoresin capsicum in isopropyl alcohol provides required irritation by greater solubility while chloroform also causes temporary incapacitation. Oleoresin capsicum was extracted from Capsicum annuum and the extract was evaluated for its characterization and purity. Further the spray is formulated and evaluated. Physical techniques might not help all the time therefore making use of pepper spray help in such situations. However marketed formulations are aerosol based and have some disadvantages like higher cost, specialized filling and packaging technique. This study reported successful approach for development of novel self defence spray for temporary incapacitation which is non-toxic, environmentally safe, easy to prepare, cost effective.

Keywords: Novel self defence spray, Self defence, Incapacitation, Oleoresin capsicum, Capsaicin.