Marine Natural Products as a Bioresource for Cosmeceuticals

The cosmetics industry is a highly profitable multibillion-dollar industry that impacts society worldwide. Because of global influence, most people are concerned with looking good, being beautiful, and staying young. Natural-product-based cosmeceutical formulations have become more popular than synthetic chemicals due to the desire of consumers for better, novel, and safer products. In this respect, marine-based natural products have gained substantial attention as cosmeceuticals with the advancement in marine bioresource technology. Secondary metabolites such as agar, alginates, carrageenans, fucoidans, galactans, porphyran, glucans, ulvans, and others have been derived from marine fungi, bacteria, macroalgae, microalgae, sponges, and corals to be significantly used as cosmeceuticals. These materials possess lightening, anti-wrinkle, UV protection, moisturizing, anti-oxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects. As stabilizers, emulsifiers, and viscosity-controlling ingredients, cosmeceuticals also possess a wide spectrum of physicochemical properties, including the ability to be used in cosmetic surgery, the pharmaceutical industry and tissue engineering. The present chapter discusses marine-based natural products, including the chemical entities and the mechanisms giving them potential effects as cosmeceuticals.