The Half Decent Pharmaceutical Chemistry Blog

Whenever I think about olive oil (not very often, if you were wondering) I always link it to Renaissance. In my mind, to be precise, oil extraction makes me visualise the image of a Renaissance court: people wearing elaborate and uncomfortable (for the job in hand) clothes making a medieval, group dance while working with a 15th century grinder, with its traditional heavy grindstone.

To complete the picture, I also imagine the tune guiding the dancers/workers throughout the extraction: a music which is pretty famous here in Italy (well-known for olive oil and, moreover, Renaissance courts), because it was the jingle of an old TV programme.
Play it while reading: it’s worth it.
Although olive oil is now a massively utilized ingredient in cosmetics, it’s rather uncommon to find it in prescribed galenic preparations. When it comes to ointments, physicians tend to indicate less expensive oils.

Happily, however, this week I’ve had the opportunity to realize how helpful olive oil could be in the making of salves containing vicious zinc oxide. Last time I met it was for an incredibly dense ointment that, to make things worse, was required in large quantity.
This time, on the contrary, the final weight was ridiculously low: only 100 g. Besides, the prescription immediately revealed I wouldn’t have a hard time, as it said: “Zinc Oxide 50 g, Olive Oil 50 g”.

For the very first time, thus, the problem was that the salve would have been much closer to a liquid emulsion or suspension rather than to any solid preparation. One way to deal with the problem could have been to simply pour the oil in the beaker with all the zinc oxide and start mixing the two components but this approach, apparently, lead to clots formation, no matter how long or vigorously you stir. Or, at least, you would oddly spend an huge amount of time stirring it with few chances of eventually yielding a decent result.

So, I worked as usual, using marble platform and spatulas, but, in this case, dropping all the powder first and then adding little by little the oil, carefully stirring in the two components especially towards the end, when the oil was being absorbed slowly and the liquid tent to go everywhere
In the end, though, the fluidity of the salve proved to be a bit of an issue when it was time to transfer it from the platform to the plastic vase, with the last bit that had to be literally trickled in.
Still, although much more expensive than other oils generally employed for these purposes, olive oil undoubtedly makes preparation incredibly easy, quick and, more importantly, is anallergic, which might explain why it was chosen by the physician, and terribly effective for treating minor skin problems such as dry skin or sunburns.