In order to understand more fully why Nemidon Gels are so revolutionary in their design and concept, it may be helpful to look briefly at what typically goes into making a skin application.

A “skin cream” has at least two components – active ingredients and a carrier medium. Since the cream has to be homogenous, there are often additional ingredients such as detergents, to ensure the material are full mixed and stablisers to ensure they stay mixed.

An active ingredient or a carrier is either oil soluble (hydrophobic) or water soluble (hydrophilic). The problem is to get the agent to be absorbed by the body and to get to the required site in the body, which usually means being carried by water.

There are therefore four possible mixtures, listed in the following table, as are the effects with respect to getting the agent into body water.

Cases 2 and 3 are formulating problems, which can be resolved with surfactants. The effect for the surfactant is to make the agent behave as if it were cases 1 or 4 respectively. The reason the agent tries to stay in the carrier is that like tries to stay with like. Some will migrate to the other medium – and this is measured by the distribution co-efficient - which measures the concentration difference at the barrier. Thus for case 1, if the distribution co-efficient was 10 (a low value for case 1) the concentration of the active ingredient in the cream at the boundary would be ten times as great as in the water of the body.

This can be summarized by noting that if you wish to have active ingredients moving into the body through body fluids, it is better to apply them in an aqueous solution dispersion using a hydrophilic carrier.

Synthetic gels gain solubility through carboxylic acids and are tied by cross links. Because synthetic cross linking is random, no special additional attributes arise. Solubilising groups such a carboxylic acids tend to feel tacky and if neutralized e.g by sweat/perspiration acids the gel will break down.

Nemidon is based on seaweed derived sugar polymers and is solubilised by hydroxyl groups which are sufficiently non interactive and water like. No tackiness follows and the gel is stable to all chemicals found on skin or used in cosmetic/pharmaceutical preparations. Nemidon is totally soluble in hot water but gels on cooling through hydrogen bonds. (These hold the strands DNA together) Seaweeds have designed the spacing of these cross links in order to encapsulate chemicals of value to them, hence we can also used these spaces. Because the hydrogen bonds are weak but instantly reformed by rubbing allowing the release of encapsulated material. Alternatively water and solution can pass rapidly through the large pores permitting rapid availability and because the free energy requirement to pass moisture in or out of the gel is close to zero, it is an excellent moisturizer/regulator.