Alcohol in beauty products

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    I just emailed a reader who recently bought the Maybelline Dream Wonder Nude Foundation, and every time she uses it, it itches in her throat (inside her throat) and I wondered if she was allergic or what it was due to.

    Then I checked the list of ingredients, and the first ingredients are the ones that the product contains the most, and there are mostly different kinds of silicones and already in 3rd place comes Alcohol Denat, so there is a lot of alcohol in the product.

    So that's why I was inspired to bring up this with alcohol in beauty products in a post, because you can not put a = sign between "alcohol" and "dehydration" as many do, but it is much more complicated than that!

    But I still take it a little briefly:

    alcohol-in-beauty products

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    Fatty alcohols - (For example, cety alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, stearyl and behenyl alcohol) are various alcohols which are not dehydrating. They are mainly used to give products a creamy and smooth texture.

    Dehydrating alcohols - (For example Ethanol, Alcohol denat, Denaturated alcohol, Isopropyl alcohol, SD alcohol) are alcohols to be a little careful with, they are used for various reasons but among other things due to the preservative effect. But they are also dehydrating and bactericidal, and are used in e.g. disinfectant.

    Alcohol Denat in Maybelline's new foundation is basically the alcohol we drink, but it is a bit made up with disgusting taste, etc. so that you do not want to drink e.g. hair spray and rubbing alcohol.

    BUT it is not necessarily bad with these alcohols either, as long as they are not present in such a large amount in the product. Because it is the end product that determines whether it is dehydrating for the skin or not, not a single ingredient. Many natural products contain alcohol to avoid synthetic ingredients, but because they are enriched with so many moisturizing ingredients, the small amount of alcohol does no harm at all.

    In Maybelline's foundation though, where the first ingredients are silicones, and silicones are not necessarily bad either (may be, this is also a jungle) but they do not moisturize the skin, and therefore the end product can be irritating to the skin. Or the airways in this case, which my reader had received.

    Summary- Not all alcohols are dehydrating, and those that are will not dry out your skin as long as they get far down the ingredient list (provided the ingredients before are moisturizing).

    Then all this is actually an even bigger jungle, e.g. that cetyl alcohol which is a fatty alcohol is mainly produced from palm oil, which in turn contributes to the devastation of the rainforest… But not everyone does either, it can also come from e.g. coconuts.

    So, you need to be pretty much more knowledgeable than this if you are to understand everything that is on the back of products! But now you know at least briefly about how alcohol affects the skin :)

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    Helena Amiley
    Helena Amileyhttps://www.imakeyousmile.se
    I write mostly about beauty but also offer glimpses from the entrepreneurial life and the construction of our own camper van. Vanlife here we come!

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