Introduction:

Phenolic compounds, due to their chemical structure, can absorb ultraviolet energy and reduce the formation of free radicals.

Aim:

To evaluate the photoprotective and antioxidant activity of phenolic compounds from the observation of in vitro results and to verify the importance of the use of biological models in this perspective.

Methodology:

A search for articles published in the Pubmed database was carried out between 2010 and 2020, which met the objectives of this work, 44 articles were selected.

Results:

According to the literature, the instrumental methods used to assess independent photoprotective activity, good correlation in vivo, and demonstrating rapid and effective determination of the sun protection factor. In addition to these, biological methods have been provided for the evaluation of aspects not measured by physical-chemical methods, related to DNA damage, resulting from sun exposure. For the evaluation of antioxidant activity, the DPPH radical method was registered in 92.6 % of published studies and it was observed that antioxidants can increase sun protection and also help in the stability of synthetic sunscreens.

Conclusion:

Phenolic compounds, especially with antioxidant properties, can be used as photoprotective agents in topical formulations to reduce skin damage induced by UV radiation.