Is Cetyl Alcohol Bad For Your Hair? Hair Benefits And More

Accept y'all ever asked yourself the question, "Is cetyl alcohol bad for your hair"?

Cetyl alcohol, which is different than Cetearyl alcohol, is i of the ingredients that you are probable to see on the label of hair conditioners, shampoos, lotions, and skin creams.

Along with stearyl alcohol and cetostearyl alcohol, this "booze" is used as an oily additive for assuasive the conditioner to more than easily spread throughout your hair.

So, Is Cetyl Booze Bad for Your Hair?

No, based on the scientific and anecdotal evidence that we've read. We haven't found any reasons to avoid using cetyl alcohol. And then, information technology comes downwards to your personal pick. If it works for your hair, yous should use it.

How Is Cetyl Booze Produced?

Cetyl booze is what is known as a fatty alcohol. Fatty alcohols carry nothing similar what nosotros know every bit real alcohols – in other words, information technology doesn't behave like propanol or ethanol.

The word "cetyl" is a reference to whale oil (the Latin give-and-take for whale is Cetus), from which the substance was first derived.

Today the alcohol is derived from natural vegetable oils and substances like palm oil (hence the alternative name palmityl alcohol) and coconut oil.

Cetyl alcohol at room temperature is a white, waxy solid or may also be found in the class of waxy white flakes.

Those who brand soap at home will find the procedure of making cetyl alcohol very similar to the procedure of saponification.

To make cetyl alcohol, coconut oil is heated with lye (which is the common name for sodium hydroxide) or another strong alkaline solution.

When information technology was showtime made in 1817, sperm whale oil was heated with potassium hydroxide and the solution was cooled. What remained after cooling were flakes of cetyl alcohol.

Cosmetic Uses: The Role of Cetyl Alcohol in Pilus Products

In the cosmetic industry, cetyl alcohol, similar many long-concatenation alcohols, has many uses. Information technology is added to lotions and skin creams as thickening agents and is a major component of hair conditioners where information technology helps the oils and water in the conditioner mix together.

Without the presence of the alcohol, the h2o-based and oil-based components in a conditioner would remain equally emulsions (or oil floating in h2o).

Information technology helps these ii components to mix and therefore is known as an emulsifying amanuensis or an emulsifier.

Hair conditioners typically comprise somewhere between 2% and iv% of cetyl alcohol.

It may exist plant in both rinse-out conditioning products equally well as get out-in conditioning products, normally in the top five ingredients listed.

It'due south the substance that gives your conditioner a creamy advent. Note that leave-in conditioners may non e'er incorporate cetyl alcohol even if they appear creamy.

Is Cetyl Booze Bad for Your Hair?

As mentioned, cetyl booze mixes the water and oils in a conditioner. Without information technology, the conditioner would separate out in the bottle into watery and oily parts.

It would be hard to spread the conditioner in that case. So, the alcohol helps with easier application.

Merely it is likewise believed to have another function to play in your hair care regimen. Afterwards the conditioner is rinsed off, some of the booze may remain in the class of deposits on the pilus and leave your hair feeling soft.

At that place is no evidence (from studies we've seen) that the alcohol penetrates the pilus strand. It is a long-chain alcohol with 16 carbons on the chain.

Most substances that are able to penetrate the hair strand are only 3 to 4 carbons long.

The substance also does not clean your hair very well. It is a non-ionic substance – meaning it does not get charged when mixed with h2o (unlike detergents and surfactants used for washing).

Cetyl alcohol is besides a surfactant (something which helps solids to exist wetted easily) since it reduces the surface tension of h2o and helps it to penetrate the oils in a conditioner.

But as information technology is not "charged" information technology cannot bind with clay and oils for cleaning purposes.

What About Stearyl Alcohol and Cetostearyl Alcohol?

Stearyl alcohol and cetosteryl alcohol are commonly listed cosmetic ingredients that are similar to cetyl alcohol.

Stearyl alcohol is essentially only cetyl alcohol with two additional carbons on the chain. Cetostearyl alcohol is a combination of the two, as the name might suggest.

So, is cetyl alcohol bad for your pilus? We don't think so. We haven't found whatever show that convinces us that ladies should avert this item booze.

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Source: https://www.curlcentric.com/is-cetyl-alcohol-bad-for-your-hair/

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