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Stearic acid in lip balm???
Hello everyone!
I know that stearic acid functions as an anionic o/w emulsifier and used in lotions and soaps as a thickening agent but after I found a website using it in its lipbalm recipe, I decided to adjust the recipe a little bit as below and see for myself:30% Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter
25% Beeswax (Cera Alba)
15,5% Stearic acid
17% Ricinus communis (Castor) oil
10% Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil
0,5% Tocopheryl Acetate (vitamin E)
2% MicaI have to say the result has a nice texture and slip but I am not quite sure about the stearic in the lip balm. Unfortunately the information I can find about this topic is limited. So, my questions are, is it actually safe to use in a lip product? And at what percentages?
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3 Replies
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It is safe to use in lip balms and there are no restrictions. Stearic acid is a fatty acid that can be found in many butters. Look at the fatty acid profile of the Cacao butter, and you will see it’s 30% stearic acid.
It becomes a surfactant only when neutralised. It is also used in moisturised as a thickener, same way as cetearyl alcohol, and it has no emulsification properties like that.
If you see stearic acid as one of the first ingredients, triethanolamine higher than 1% line and no other emulsifiers, then it is used as an emulsifier because stearic acid was neutralised by TEA and formed an old fashioned emulsifier called TEA-stearate, which is a soap. -
I use it at 15% in my lip balm:
INCI % Octyldodecanol 31% Euphorbia
Cerifera4% Beeswax 20% Petrolatum 25% Stearic acid 15% Behenyl
Alcohol5% -
I can’t thank you enough for your help!
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