COSMETICS INDUSTRY AS A PROMISING OPPORTUNITY FOR DONKEY BREEDING: CONSUMER ACCEPTABILITY OF A COSMETIC CREAM BASED ON MILK FROM THE MARTINA FRANCA BREED

Donkey milk is a valuable product due to its uses that range from feeding newborns and heart and hypercholesterolemic patients to making dairy products, cosmetics, active biomolecules, and soaps. Although the use of donkey milk for cosmetic applications has a long history, there is little knowledge about its perceived quality in cosmetics. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the perception of untrained consumers regarding the sensory aspects of a donkey milk-based face cream. The consumer test was carried out by 110 randomly recruited women who evaluated two formulations of the cosmetic with or without donkey milk. On the 7th and 15th day of use, the following sensory aspects were evaluat-ed: appearance, fragrance, effectiveness, and overall satisfaction. ANOVA test demonstrated the effect of cosmetics and skin type on judgement. In both periods, the donkey milk-added cream reached a good rating in most of the pa-rameters. Consumers with dry skin appreciated this product more than consumers with normal and oily skin and gave significantly higher ratings for moisturization and smoothness of the skin in both periods. Keywords: biodiversity; donkey milk; cosmetics; consumer acceptance