Oleosomes are natural lipid droplets with strong potential as carriers for functional ingredients, yet their delivery and release mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. This study extracts hempseed oleosomes, loads with hydrophobic functional ingredients, and elucidates how membrane properties regulate ingredient release in an in vitro skin permeation model.

Oleosomes were extracted and purified from hempseeds using an aqueous extraction method. Hydrophobic ingredients were encapsulated via a co-solvent method and evaluated using a Franz diffusion cell to assess in vitro skin permeation.

Encapsulation efficiencies exceeded 90 wt% across different adding concentrations. In the Franz diffusion cell assay, both release and skin accumulation of functional ingredients increased with higher encapsulation levels. Modulating oleosome membrane properties altered the intermolecular interactions between proteins and phospholipids, thereby facilitating ingredient release and permeation.

This work demonstrates the potential of hempseed oleosomes as natural carriers for transdermal delivery. Hydrophobic functional ingredients can be efficiently encapsulated while oleosomes maintaining high structural integrity. Skin permeation is strongly dependent on loading concentration, and membrane property modulation provides an effective strategy to tune intermolecular interactions, release profiles, and transdermal transport. These findings clarify the mechanistic role of membrane properties in release kinetics and bioavailability, offering a natural alternative to synthetic emulsifiers and over-processing.