Evaluation of safety and antioxidant efficacy of essential oils and carrier oils

In this study, we have evaluated the safety and antioxidant efficacy of the following: sage, marjoram, hyssop essential oil, grape seed, macadamia and sunflower carrier oil. To evaluate the safety, survival rate of zebrafish embryo was tested after 24, 48 and 72 hours. Antioxidant efficacy was evaluated using DPPH test and FRAP method. As we have evaluated the safety, we have found that there is a tendency for the toxicity to increase as concentration increases. Carrier oil resulted less toxic than essential oil. Macadamia oil showed the highest hatchability of embryos with a 100% hatching rate at all experimental concentrations. In the DPPH radical inhibition test, all of the oils except hyssop oil showed concentration-dependent antioxidant activity at 10.0%, 5.0%, 2.5% and 1.0%. DPPH radical inhibition was at highest at 100.79% at 10.0% of marjoram oil. Antioxidant efficacy results by FRAP method showed no difference regarding antioxidant effect according to the concentration of each oil. It is speculated that this is due to the oils’ chemical composition.