Intro to each Co Emulsifier I’ll be comparing
Cetyl Alcohol (16 C)
Also known as 1-hexadecanol or n-hexadecyl alcohol, Palmityl alcohol.
Cetyl Alcohol is a fatty alcohol, thickener, opacifier, and co emulsifier that helps stabilize emulsions. It helps create desired consistencies for products and moisturizes the skin. Cetyl Alcohol is derived from vegetable oils such as palm and coconut. Contrary to its name, Cetyl Alcohol actually contains no alcohol and isn’t drying like traditional alcohols. It is moisturizing! So please don’t avoid this ingredient because of it’s name. Can’t judge a book by it’s cover, right?
It can be used in a variety of products like lotions, creams, hair care, balms, lip products, scrubs, bars, etc.
Melting Point: 49.3 °C / 120.7°F
Cetyl Alcohol isn’t only used in cosmetics, but also food, industrial lubricant, fuels, chemical intermediates, and plasticizers.
Fun fact; Michel Chevreul discovered Cety Alcohol in 1817 when he heated a waxy substance from sperm whale oil called spermaceti with potassium hydroxide. This isn’t how cetyl alcohol is made today. According to Puracy.com Cetyl Alcohol is made by “reducing ethyl palmitate with metallic sodium and alcohol or by using lithium aluminum hydride as a catalyst under acidic conditions”
Cetyl Alcohol can be found as an ingredient in BTMS 50 & BTMS 25
*Vegan & is accepted in natural products and is Ecocert Approved
Stearyl Alcohol (18 C)
Also known as 1-octadecanol, Octadecanol, Octadecan-1-ol
Stearyl Alcohol is a fatty alcohol that does the same thing as cetyl alcohol. It is a thickener, opacifier, and co emulsifier that helps stabilize emulsions. It helps create desired consistencies for products and moisturizes the skin. It isn’t drying like traditional alcohols. It is moisturizing!
Just like Cetyl Alcohol, Stearyl Alcohol is derived from Coconut or Palm oil.
Stearyl Alcohol does have a longer fatty alcohol chain than cetyl alcohol, which is why it is 18C while Cetyl Alcohol is 16C.
Stearyl Alcohol and Cetyl Alcohol do not preform much differently from one another in formulas so they can be used interchangeably. Stearyl Alcohol doesn’t seem to be as easy to find, so Cetyl and Cetearyl will probably be a better option to keep in your ingredient collection.
Melting point: 56 – 60°C / 133-140°F
As you can see stearyl alcohol has a slightly higher melting point than cetyl. So if you want your product to have a higher melting point than stearyl alcohol would be a better option than cetyl.
Stearyl Alcohol can be used in a variety of products like lotions, creams, hair care, balms, lip products, scrubs, bars, etc.
*Vegan & is accepted in natural products and is Ecocert Approved
Cetearyl Alcohol (16 C & 18 C)
Also known as cetostearyl alcohol, cetyl/stearyl alcohol, or C16-18 alcohol.
Cetearyl Alcohol is a combination of Cetyl Alcohol and Stearyl Alcohol. It comes in different ratio blends depending on what supplier you purchase it from. The one I have is a 70:30 blend, but some suppliers might sell different ratios like 50:50. Read the description of where you bought your ingredient to see what yours is.
Cetearyl Alcohol is a fatty alcohol, thickener, opacifier, and co emulsifier that helps stabilize emulsions. It helps create desired consistencies for products and moisturizes the skin. So if you want to get the benefits from both Cetyl and Stearyl Alcohol you can use Cetearyl Alcohol.
Melting Point: 50°C / 122°F
Cetearyl Alcohol can be used in a variety of product like lotions, creams, hair care, balms, lip products, scrubs, bars, etc.
Cetearyl Alcohol can be found in Emulsifying Wax / Emulsifying Wax NF & in Ritamulse SCG / Ecomulse
*Vegan & is accepted in natural products and is Ecocert Approved
Also known as Octadecanoic acid, n-Octadecanoic acid, 1-Heptadecanecarboxylic acid, C18:0, CAS 57-11-4, & Stearophanic Acid
This is a long chain fatty acid with an 18-carbon chain which is why it is also known as C18.
Stearic acid is a hardener, emollient, co emulsifier, it’s often used in soaps, specifically whipped soaps as a thickener. If you need a thickener in a product that lathers, I recommend stearic acid. It is also commonly used in butters to increase melting point or other anhydrous based products
Stearic acid is found naturally in so many different animals and plants but more stearic acid can be found in animals fats than vegetable fats. It can also be found in the butters and oils we use like Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter, Coconut oil, Grapeseed oil, Hazelnut oil, Avocado Oil, the list can go on. Most stearic acids we purchase are vegan and sources from palm or coconut oils.
This isn’t a scary acid that is going to burn your skin. It also isn’t like Alpha hydroxy acids, or Beta hydroxy acids either. So you don’t need to worry about it exfoliating your skin or lowering the pH of your products.
Melting Point: 69.4 °C / 156.92 °F
Fun fact: According to Wikipedia “Its name comes from the Greek word στέαρ "stéar", which means tallow."
Stearic Acid can be used in a variety of product like lotions, creams, hair care, balms, lip products, scrubs, bars, etc.
*Vegan & is accepted in natural products but I couldn’t find anything online about it being Ecocert Approved
Behenyl Alcohol (C22)
Also known as 1-docosanol, 1docosanol, Docosan-1-OL, Lanette® 22
Behenyl Alcohol is used as an emollient, co emulsifier, thickener, hardener, and opacifier. This is another long chain fatty alcohol which is why it’s (C22)
Behenyl Alcohol “Is capable of inhibiting a wide range of viruses, including HSV, HCMV, and VZV” According to PubChem & sciencedirect.com Behenyl alcohol is used in over the counter medication (OTC) for fever blisters and cold sores in a 10% cream.
I personally find behenyl alcohol used in a lot of deodorants as a hardener, emollient and to add slip.
Overall this Fatty Alcohol is not as commonly used compared to the others, but it’s still an option. It is also more expensive, which is probably why we don’t see it as often. It does seem to have the highest melting point out of all of these, so maybe we should try using this in our anhydrous butters instead.
Melting Point: 65 - 73°C / 149 - 163.4°F
*Vegan & is accepted in natural products and is Ecocert Approved
Which Co Emulsifier is the Cheapest?
I compared prices from a few different suppliers (none of them seemed to carry all of them) but here is a list from cheapest to most expensive.
Stearic Acid
Cetyl Alcohol
Cetearyl Alcohol
Stearyl Alcohol
Behenyl Alcohol
Comparing Sensory Feel and Viscosity
Experiment #1
For the first experiment I made a lotion using each Co emulsifier. I also made one with just the emulsifying wax so I can see how they compare in a moisturizer. Here is the formula I used.
Phase A (water phase)
66.5% Distilled water
5% Glycerin
Phase B (oil phase)
6% Emulsifying Wax
2% Cetyl Alcohol / Stearic Acid / Behenyl Alcohol / Cetearyl Alcohol / Stearyl Alcohol
20% Oil (I used sunflower)
Phase C (water phase)
0.5% Liquid Germall Plus
I’m going to be honest. It was really hard for me to compare these. I really couldn’t notice too much of a difference in any of them. They all just had slight differences. Which makes sense, I should have used more co emulsifier in each experiment. Also it’s not really fair since emulsifying wax already contains Cetearyl Alcohol. So I don’t think this was the best experiment, but I did notice really slight differences in some of the lotions.
Stearic Acid lotion as the thickest, I thought. But then another day the Behenyl Alcohol felt the thickest. It also had more of a waxy feeling and more drag on the skin, it was a bit harder to spread on the skin compared to the others.
Behenyl Alcohol lotion was the most similar to the stearic acid lotion because it also had more of a waxy like feel. It had more drag compared to the other lotions, but was still easier to spread than the stearic acid.
Cetyl Alcohol it makes fluffier lotions and has better spreadability than behenyl alcohol and stearic acid. I also think the lotion seemed fluffier than the Stearyl & Cetearyl Alcohol lotion as well. It leaves a soft & smooth feeling on my skin that I love. This one is my favorite so I may be biased.
Stearyl Alcohol I really can’t notice much of a difference between this and cetyl alcohol. I really feel like you could easily use this instead of cetyl alcohol and no one would notice the difference. Main difference is I think the cetyl was just a little fluffier and the Stearyl felt more dense.
Cetearyl Alcohol again I just can’t notice any difference with this compared to cetyl or stearyl alcohol. This is just a combination of the two, so I guess that makes sense. So I think it will just come down to personal preference on what you prefer. & again I think cetyl was slightly fluffier, but honestly I don’t feel confident really saying this cause it could just be me being biased. Basically the Cetearyl just feels a little more dense than the Cetyl Alcohol lotion.
Experiment #2
For the second experiment I melted down 6% of each co emulsifier with 94% sunflower oil. This way I can get a better feel of just the co emulsifier on it’s own.
Order from thickest to thinnest
Cetearyl Alcohol, Behenyl Alcohol, Stearyl Alcohol, Stearic Acid, & Cetyl Alcohol
When it came to the sensory feel. It was so hard for me to compare these, but I want to say Stearic and Behenyl Alcohol had the most drag and a waxy ointment like feel. Then Stearyl Cetyl and Cetearyl were just all way to similar to notice much of a difference
Conclusion
Stearic acid is best for whipped soaps, soaps, anhydrous butters, balms, salves, scrubs or anything that you need a high melting point or a heavier product. Like a foot cream or maybe for dry elbows and knees. Of course you can use it in lotions, hair care products, cosmetics or anything else you want as well. I’m just letting you know what it’s most commonly used in. This is the cheapest co emulsifiers. So it’s great to use if you are needed a high amount of hardener in your product.
Behenyl Alcohol is best for salves, ointments, anhydrous butters, scrubs, deodorants again, anything that needs a high melting point. You can use it in whatever product you want though, like lotions, hair care, cosmetics, etc. It is the most expensive out of all these, so that’s probably why you don’t see it used much. I did notice it’s pretty high up on the ingredient list for that really expensive Tatcha Dewy Cream I see every influence using
Cetyl and Stearyl Alcohol I’m lumping these together because I really think these can be used interchangeably and people won’t noticed the difference. Stearyl Alcohol does have a slightly higher melting point, so use that if melting is a concern. Also stearyl alcohol is harder to find. I notice most suppliers don’t sell it. But if you want your product to have good spreadability I recommend sticking with Cetyl and Stearyl (or cetearyl of course)
Cetearyl Alcohol you get the best of both worlds! (Singing Hannah Montana) But seriously if you just want a combo of cetyl and stearyl because - idk maybe you just want 2 instead of 1 - then use Cetearyl Alcohol. I took a look at a lot of store bought lotions and most of them do contain a blend of co emulsifiers. Mostly Cetearyl Alcohol and Cetyl Alcohol. But I also seen a lot of Stearic acid combined with Cetyl Alcohol. Stearyl Alcohol is the one I see the least on ingredient lists and Behenyl Alcohol I seen a lot just not as often as cetearyl alcohol, cetyl alcohol, or stearic acid.
Sources;
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