Arginine-based surfactants alter the rheological and in-plane structural properties of stratum corneum model membranes.

Hypothesis: Amino acid-based surfactants have been proposed as skin permeation enhancers. In this work, we investigated the potentiality of two arginine-based amphiphiles as permeation enhancers by studying their interaction with stratum corneum (SC) model lipid membranes.

Experiments: N-benzoyl arginine decyl- and dodecylamide were tested in comparison with the classical enhancer, oleic acid, and the non-enhancer, stearic acid.