Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating When ingredient on packaging just says “alcohol”

  • When ingredient on packaging just says “alcohol”

    Posted by samsal on April 26, 2022 at 1:07 pm

    Hello, Im reverse engineering a hair styling product. There are 3 alcohol ingredients in the formula. Two of them are specified as denatured and phenethyl alcohol but the third is listed simply as alcohol. Am I to assume this is isopropyl alcohol? The full list is posted below. Thank you. 

    Water/Aqua/Eau,Alcohol Denat. Silica, Polysorbate 80, Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract, Lithium Magnesium Sodium Silicate, Cetrimonium Chloride, Propanediol , Pentylene Glycol, Phenethyl Alcohol, Alcohol, Citric Acid, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Coumarin, Limonene, Linalool, Fragrance/Parfum

    samsal replied 2 years ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • OldPerry

    Member
    April 26, 2022 at 1:45 pm

    Alcohol would normally be Ethanol. It should not be used to refer to isopropyl alcohol.

    So, there are a few possibilities.

    1. They don’t understand the labeling rules and made a mistake. They already list Alcohol Denat which is also Ethanol (but with a denaturing additive) so listing more Alcohol that is added is redundant and not needed. 

    2. They misunderstand the labeling rules & made a mistake. This is a situation where one of their other raw materials is sold to them with alcohol as the solvent. Normally, you would list that too but since alcohol is already listed they didn’t need to. 

    3. They made a typo. They meant it to be isopropyl alcohol (or benzyl or some other alcohol) but forgot the isopropyl (or other) part.

    If it is a proper ingredient and I had to guess based on where it is located, I’d say it’s Benzyl Alcohol. But the most likely is they made mistake #1 listed above.

  • samsal

    Member
    April 26, 2022 at 2:56 pm

    ok great, thank you!

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