Essential oils can be very effective in treating nail fungus—more so than using antifungal pills or applying antifungal nail polish, and without their side effects.
There is only one problem:
When the nail fungus is thick, it’s difficult to get the essential oils down to the roots of it.
A new study in the FABAD Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences reveals a simple solution to this problem that may eliminate nail fungus from the world for good.
Recently, a technology called nanoemulsion has been used in materials such as makeup, medicine, and paint.
Nanoemulsion is a process in which the droplets of one liquid (such as oil) are dispersed in another liquid (such as water) in sizes typically ranging from 50 to 1000 nanometers. The droplets being so small helps the absorption of the active ingredients by the skin and nails.
The study’s authors decided to develop nanoemulsion formulations that could help antifungal substances penetrate deeper into the nail and be more effective in treating nail fungus. They tested the antifungal activity of the substances and how well they were released from the formulation.
They used lavender oil, tea tree oil, geranium oil, and a mixture of the three, as these oils have been proven to have antifungal properties.
The study produced most of the results they expected.
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1. The active components of the essential oils were released more effectively from the nanoemulsion formulations than from their pure forms.
2. The lavender oil nanoemulsion was 8.5 times more effective than the pure form of the oil at killing Trichophyton rubrum fungi.
3. The geranium oil nanoemulsion was 6 times more effective than the pure form.
4. Lavender, tea tree, and geranium oils were all capable of killing nail fungus.
5. The mixture of the three oils showed weaker antifungal activity than the individual oils.
Nanoemulsion formulations of these oils aren’t widely available, so we are stuck with their less effective pure forms for now. They are something to watch for, though, in the future.