What is Cetyl Alcohol?

Most of our ingredients are easy to recognize: coconut oil, mango butter, essential oil… these are all simple ingredients. You may have read our ingredient list and wondered about cetyl alcohol. What is it, and is it natural? Does it dry out your skin? Why use it?

Cetyl alcohol is usually made from hydrogenating fats or oils, then taking the fatty acid created and converting it to cetyl alcohol. Far from drying out your skin, like the isopropyl alcohol we are familiar with, cetyl alcohol is used for its qualities that help moisturize skin. It creates a barrier to lock in moisture.

When cetyl alcohol was first discovered, it was made from whale fat. Today, it is typically made from palm oil or coconut oil, and is also known as palmityl alcohol. When sourced from a natural ingredient like palm oil, it is generally considered natural.

When I first made lotion, I left it in my car in the summer heat and it quickly separated. All I had to do was mix it up again, but inconvenience is not what we generally want in a lotion. Also, the more you handle your home made lotion, the more opportunity for germs to breed. Enter cetyl alcohol. It helps keep our lotion from separating as well as helping moisturize skin. (I still do not advise leaving your lotion in a hot car.)

Home made soap is not as foamy as what you buy at the store, but cetyl alcohol helps create a nice foam lather so that you scrub longer and lift all those germs away.

Oak Manour strives to make quality products as naturally as possible. Cetyl alcohol helps us do that.