UNAIR NEWS – The academic community of Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) continues to make innovations. This time, a facial serum made from butterfly pea, a collaboration with students and lecturers of the Faculty of Vocational Studies (FV) UNAIR finally received a distribution permit from the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) in early 2023.
“BPOM (permit) for serum products was issued last January, and the production is still at loading stage from April to May under the guidance of BSI (Bank Syariah Indonesia, ed) Maslahat,” said Daniyal Firmansyah in an interactive dialogue with Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI) Surabaya, Saturday, April 1, 2023.
Flashback of innovation journey
According to UNAIR NEWS , the facial serum is one of the Velife Skincare variants developed by Daniyal with four Traditional Medicine four-year vocational students. Their innovation—the Terence Team—passed funding in the 2021 Vocational Student Entrepreneurship Week (PKMV) organized by the Directorate of Vocational and Professional Higher Education.
Daniyal revealed that his team researched the butterfly pea flower because the plant was not only beneficial for health. Furthermore, according to him, the high antioxidant content has the potential to be a raw material for beauty products such as facial serums for anti-aging as well as moisturizing and brightening all skin types.
In line with Daniyal, supervising lecturer Rini Hamsidi SFarm MFarm Apt explained that beauty products of butterfly pea flowers are still limited in the market. Beauty product innovation from natural ingredients has been developed since 2021.
“There is anthocyanin pigment in butterfly pea flower which contains high antioxidants. We first looked for the dye because natural ingredients with attractive colors are definitely high in antioxidants,” added Rini, also present at the Interactive Dialog.
Development of beauty product variants
In addition to serum, continued Daniyal, various beauty products have been made from the butterfly pea flower, such as face oil, lip balm, and face mask. Of those three, only face oil is already a prototype, while lip balm is still in the refinement stage.
The Traditional Medicine student said that he would develop skin care products such as moisturizer, sunscreen, and face wash made from butterfly pea flowers. These raw materials are proven safe because they are taken from certified places, including Kampung Hydroponics Surabaya.
The Traditional Medicine student said that he would develop skin care products such as moisturizer, sunscreen, and face wash made from butterfly pea flowers. These raw materials are proven safe because they are taken from certified places, including Kampung Hydroponics Surabaya.
“We are not going to promote the butterfly pea flower only, but also other Indonesian flowers. Most of the time , skincare comes from other countries. Therefore, we also want to be pioneers,” concluded Daniyal.
Author: Sela Septi Dwi Arista
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
