The objective of this paper was to investigate chemical
composition and the in vitro cytotoxic potential of C.
citratus and C. nardus essential oils. The assumption was
made that these essential oils, commonly used or
proposed for use in soap and body care and in different
formulations to treat skin troubles like acnes and tinea
in West Africa (Orafidiya et al., 2001; Orafidiya et al.,
2002) may be toxic to the human epidermic cell line
HaCaT. Hence the cytotoxicity evaluation of these
volatile essential oils undertaken in this work
constitutes one of the important steps prior to their
possible exhaustive assessment for pharmaceutical use
against superficial skin mycosis.
mass spectrometer of the Hewlett Packard 5971 SERIES
type operating in the EI mode at 70 eV. The capillary
column type was DB5-MS (30 m x 0.25 mm i.d.; film
thickness 0.25 μm). The amount of sample injected and
GC/MS parameters were the same as above.