{"id":2425,"date":"2009-05-27T15:07:14","date_gmt":"2009-05-27T20:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145696.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2009-05-27T15:07:14","modified_gmt":"2009-05-27T20:07:14","slug":"vegetable-emulsifying-wax-not-as-natural-as-it-sounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/articles\/vegetable-emulsifying-wax-not-as-natural-as-it-sounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegetable Emulsifying Wax Not as Natural as it Sounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"None\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2426\" src=\"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/itaintnaturalbering.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"448\" height=\"336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/itaintnaturalbering.jpg 448w, https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/itaintnaturalbering-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Vegetable emulsifying wax is widely used in a variety of skin care, hair care and cosmetic products as an emulsifier (keeps oil and water from separating) because it is easy to work with and relatively inexpensive.\u00a0 Sounds harmless enough, right?\u00a0 You may be surprised to find out that it is actually a chemical cocktail and not the natural ingredient the name implies.\u00a0 <a title=\"Stephanie Greenwood \" href=\"http:\/\/bubbleandbee.blogspot.com\/2009\/05\/ive-talked-about-how-although-its-great.html\" target=\"_blank\">Stephanie Greenwood of Bubble &amp; Bee Organic<\/a> did some research on this innocuous sounding ingredient and found that it is actually made up of Cetearyl Alcohol (a blend of cetyl and steareth alcohol), Polysorbate 60, PEG-150 Stearate and Steareth-20.\u00a0 Not sounding quite so natural now.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Let\u2019s break it down:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Cetearyl Alcohol<\/strong> carries a low risk\u00a0for skin irritation and tumor formation when used at high doses.\u00a0 Not terribly hazardous, but still a synthetically produced ingredient.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Polysorbate 60<\/strong> is a possible reproductive toxin and could cause tumor formation at high doses.\u00a0 Again, not horrible but not natural either.<\/li>\n<li><strong>PEG-150 Stearate<\/strong> (short for polyethylene glycol) is an ethoxylated compound, which means that it has been processed with ethylene oxide, a known human carcinogen.\u00a0 When processed with ethylene oxide, the product can contain traces of this compound, along with byproducts such as <a title=\"Terri Bly Cleaning Up Their Act\" href=\"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/2009\/03\/18\/cleaning-up-their-act-one-year-after-the-14-dioxane-scandal\" target=\"_blank\">1,4-dioxane<\/a>, also a known carcinogen.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Steareth-20<\/strong> is also an ethoxylated compound and can contain trace amounts of ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane.\u00a0 Stearyl alcohol (a naturally-ocurring fatty alcohol) is combined with ethylene oxide.\u00a0 The number at the end is how many units of ethylene oxide reacted with the stearyl alcohol.\u00a0 Steareth-20 has been reacted with 20 units of ethylene oxide.\u00a0 There are steareths ranging from 2 on up, Steareth-20 being the highest.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The <a title=\"Cosmetics Database\" href=\"http:\/\/cosmeticsdatabase.com\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Cosmetics Database<\/a> ranks most of these synthetic compounds fairly low (a lower number signifying a less hazardous ingredient); Cetearyl Alcohol-\u201c0\u201d,\u00a0 Steareth-20-\u201c1\u201d, Polysorbate 60-\u201c1\u201d, and PEG-150 Stearate would probably rank \u201c5-7\u201d (PEG-100 Stearate ranks a \u201c5\u201d).\u00a0 At this point vegetable emulsifying wax carries a rank of &#8220;0&#8221;.\u00a0 Though the Cosmetics Database is a great place to start in researching ingredients, it is not fool proof and not all ingredients are researched fully.<\/p>\n<p>To avoid ethoxylated compounds look for ingredients with \u201ceth\u201d in them, like Sodium Laureth Sulfate, sodium myreth sulfate, steareth, ceteareth, polyethylene.<\/p>\n<p>Image credit:\u00a0 bering at Flickr.com, Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vegetable emulsifying wax is widely used in a variety of skin care, hair care and cosmetic products as an emulsifier (keeps oil and water from separating) because it is easy to work with and relatively inexpensive.\u00a0 Sounds harmless enough, right?\u00a0 You may be surprised to find out that it is actually a chemical cocktail and [&hellip;] <a class=\"g1-link g1-link-more\" href=\"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/articles\/vegetable-emulsifying-wax-not-as-natural-as-it-sounds\/\">More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[11,133],"tags":[3717,3825,3826,130,3827,3828,16,9022,3829,3830,9011,3831,3832],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/itaintnaturalbering.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelgoodstyle.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}