Here’s an ingredient with a mixed pedigree. Lanolin is a pure and rather lovely natural ingredient derived from wool. PEG-75 Lanolin is lanolin that has been ethoxylated. This means that the lanolin is treated with ethylene oxide to make it more water soluble. This enables it to be used in ways that you can’t use lanolin itself.
The 75 bit is important, and represents the degree of ethoxylation. It literally means that there are 75 ethylene oxide units per molecule of lanolin. This is a slightly eccentric naming system from a pure chemistry point of view but it enables a formulator to gauge just how water soluble this material is. 75 is quite a high number as these things go meaning that PEG-75 Lanolin is going to be usable in quite water rich environments such as shampoos. It tends to be used more often in skincare though.
The benefit you get from this surfactant is that it is an effective way of holding oil and water together, but it still has a pleasant skin feel. It is also a way of sneaking lanolin into products past marketing departments. They might well ask the formulator to avoid lanolin because of its poor image with the public. Well it isn’t lanolin. You can meet the letter of what you are being told to do without respecting the spirit. Luckily marketing people don’t have much attention to detail.
What ethoxylated lanolin does very well, and possibly better than anything else, is create emulsions with mineral oil that are easily washed off. This is great for products like makeup remover. Indeed, any product where you want to use mineral oil for its cleansing ability can benefit from it.
This is one of quite a large family of lanolin derivatives that pop up all over the place in products. Lanolin has quite a versatile chemistry that makes it very appealing as the starting point for coming up with new functional ingredients. It hasn’t always been in fashion but it will always impress people who are looking for performance from their personal care products.
Thank you Colin. That explains Eve Lom cleanser.
Very interesting. Since reading your previous posts about lanolin, I have been experimenting with Astral cream on my dry skin and psoriasis with some positive results. At least it seems to be more effective than Vaseline as a long-lasting barrier cream on my hands and I think it is helping with dry patches elsewhere too.
Foaming shower gels and cleansers can definitely be problematic for me, so I would be interested in some pointers towards products containing PEG-75 Lanolin.
Thank you very much for your blog. It is great for someone like me who needs effective products, but who long ago gave up on the hype which prevails around skincare.
I’m glad to find your blog and ebook. You’ve saved me money. The beauty industry is really compelling and when bloggers/youtubers start to get technical it almost convinces me I need that extra product to make the other one work.
Is basic drugstore mineral oil safe to use as a make-up remover? And what do people have against plain old-fashioned lanolin these days?
Hello Vanessa. Mineral oil is a perfectly safe make-up remover and I have written a fair bit about lanolin if you are interested. http://colinsbeautypages.co.uk/lanolin/
Where can one source this ingredient?