United States Patent Application 20120251469 Kind Code A1 Carnali; Joseph Oreste ; et al. October 4, 2012

In a first aspect, the present invention is directed to a composition comprising: a) a sunless tanning agent; and b) an adjuvant for the sunless tanning agent, the adjuvant comprising a pyranone, furanone, derivative thereof or mixture thereof. In a second aspect, the present invention is directed to a method for generating a sunless tan comprising the step of applying to the skin the composition of the first aspect of this invention.
In a most preferred embodiment, the sunless tanning adjuvant used in this invention is 3-hydroxy-6-methyl, 4-pyrone, often known commonly as Allomatol. Typically, the adjuvant makes up from about 0.025 to about 35%, and preferably, from about 0.05 to about 15%, and most preferably, from about 0.5 to about 8% by weight of the composition, including all ranges subsumed therein. It is also within the scope of this invention to employ mixtures of adjuvant represented by formulae I and II. Such adjuvants may be obtained from fungi like Aspergillus oryzae or by art recognized techniques including those which are initiated with a Kojic acid precursor.