Label gobbledy-gook (a glossary)

So, here at Dr. K’s we try to hold things to pronounceable ingredients.

However, English and Chemistry can be very different languages. Sometimes, the yucky-level of an ingredient has no relationship to the scariness of its chemical name. (That’s when one can spout it off at all. Like trying to say the word for “see you later” in German, a lot of chemistry words take practice.)

My favorite? Behentrimonium methosulfate.

It’s an amazing naturally-derived hair and skin conditioning ingredient that’s in some of the gentlest and most trusted products on the planet. No exaggeration: CeraVe cream is one of the most highly recommended products for super-sensitive skin out there and it’s available at most grocery stores and essentially every drugstore. Next time, go ahead and flip a jar of it around to check it out on the label.

Yet, BTMS (as it’s affectionately called in the handcrafting world) is certainly one of the more “you’ve gotta be kiddin’ me WHAT?” looking ingredients you’ll see on any of our labels. (PS. Rowan Atkinson is a fucking icon. Fact.)

First things first:
There are THREE words that you need to know before you peruse the list below:
1 - Surfactant. “SURFace ACTing AgeNT.” This is any kind of molecule that can at least partially interact with watery stuff on one side and oily stuff on another. These kinds of molecules are everywhere and they are intrinsic and critical to the behind-the-curtain magic at Dr. K’s!
2 - Detergent. A type of surfactant used for cleaning. These can be naturally derived. The word generally excludes the category of old-school “soaps” (Old-school soaps are made by adding lye to oil).
3- Emulsifier. A type of surfactant used to make oily stuff and watery stuff pretend to play nice together. Milk is an emulsion, as are creams, liquid lotions, all of that goodness. All of these products require some chemistry mojo with emulsifiers to keep your product from “breaking” like nasty expired mayonnaise.

Now - onto the gobbledy-gook ingredient list:

Behentriumonium chloride/Behentrimonium methosulfate: A conditioning surfactant derived from natural oils that gives a ridiculously nice feel to hair and skin.

Cetearyl alcohol: A fabulous ingredient with a horribly misleading name! Spoiler alert: It has essentially zero similar physical properties to either the alcohol that gets you drunk (ethyl alcohol, AKA ethanol) or disinfects surfaces (isopropyl alcohol AKA isopropanol). In fact, it’s derived from coconut and palm oils, and is like a solid wax. It’s used to thicken body products and give them a sexy spreading texture.

Citric acid: This is the stuff that gives lemon-lime soda its flavor and one of the fruit acids used to make foods sour. Dr. K mainly uses this ingredient alongside sodium bicarbonate in fizzy products, but also uses it to avoid products getting too alkaline and as a step-ingredient for making sodium citrate (See below for sodium citrate!)

Disodium EDTA: This is a molecule that locks onto metal atoms to keep them from being buttheads. (Nerd-term: chelator.) Exposing a beautiful product to metal from hard water or metal packaging can wreak havoc on it, turning a delightful lotion into rusted orange grossness. (Go ahead, ask me how I know.) Disodium EDTA has the added benefit of letting a smaller amount of preservative go further in keeping hungry bacteria and fungus out of your beloved body product. EDTA stands for a long chemical name that kinda looks like someone beat their head against a keyboard when they typed it: ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid.

Glycerin: This is a natural product that actually is a byproduct of the natural soapmaking process that helps give handmade hot/cold process soaps a skin-love that is sometimes missing from detergent bars. It draws water to itself for hydration and it also helps other ingredients play nice with water that normally won’t. It’s naturally sweet to taste (don’t try it in our finished products, please! Gross!) and helps with lather; in fact, it’s one of the ingredients in homemade bubble-blowing formulas for kids.

Glyceryl stearate: An emulsifier - a piece of a palm oil (usually palm, anyway) molecule stapled onto a molecule of glycerin. I think of this one kind of like the security guard at the door that makes sure what the bouncer kicks out, stays out.

Isopropyl myristate: This is a naturally derived product where a little chemical pizzazz was done to oil (usually a fraction of palm oil) to create a cool oil-like product that makes other oils feel less sticky-goo on the skin. Gentle stuff.

Jojoba esters: A fraction of jojoba oil plus or minus solidified jojoba oil. One of the ingredients Dr. K uses to both thicken product and make it feel ohh so sexy.

PEG-100 stearate: This is one of Dr. K’s favorite heavy-lifting surfactants, making a body product stay lovely and not break into that expired-mayonnaise muck. It’s a molecule that keeps the peace between the oily and the watery by having one long oily arm (usually from palm oil) and one long watery arm (a water-friendly polymer used widely in the pharmaceutical industry)

Polysorbate 80: This is an old-school workhorse of many uses in the “surfactant” category - it’s even used in medicines that go inside the body! It’s used as an emulsifier in many handcrafters’ lotions. (Dr. K’s uses other emulsifiers in our lotions for terribly nerdy skinfeel reasons, however, despite that Polysorbate 80 is inexpensive.) While it doesn’t act as a detergent, it does still help oily stuff rinse away better than they’d rinse without it.

Propanediol: Another scary sounding one that really isn’t. This is similar to glycerin, and almost identical to another ingredient some manufacturers use called propylene glycol. However, the research that I’ve done indicates it’s both less toxic AND greener to produce than propylene glycol.

Sodium citrate: The version of citric acid that isn’t acidic anymore. Like citric acid, this is also used as a flavoring agent in foods. Dr. K uses it as a less-scary sounding and more natural little-sister chelator to Disodium or Tetrasodium EDTA in formulas that need help without dragging out the EDTA bazookas. (It’s also part of a secret awesome-sauce in some of the soaps.)

Sodium cocoyl isethionate: A naturally derived detergent (from coconut oil - hence “cocoyl”) that is so gentle that one supplier I know of calls this ingredient “BabyFoam.” It has a magic molecular shape that just doesn’t seem to be inclined to soak into the skin, therefore cleansing the top just like we want without any irritating deep dives. Note that not all detergents are non-irritating. One of the detergents that seems to be rough in this category is called “sodium laureth sulfate,” which is still pretty common in shampoo products.

Sodium hydroxide: Lye. This is the very caustic stuff that requires heavy-duty safety procedures that turns oil into soap! It breaks the oil into glycerin and soap molecules, and by the time the soap is completely made, there isn’t any lye left in it.

Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate: A detergent that you’ll most commonly see from handcrafters who make bubble-bath bombs, often shortened to “SLSa.” This one is a strange little ninja - it’s chemically very close to Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (AKA “SLS”), which gets a lot of hate as a rough detergent that’s even more common in current cosmetics (even toothpaste!) than sodium laurETH sulfate mentioned above. SLSa is gentler than SLS, even though it’s also pricier. Worth it for fab bubbles with less skin irritation.

Squalane: A lipid that is very skin-loving that is almost chemically identical to one of the compounds our body naturally produces (squalene). The squalane SkunkScrub uses is vegan. Commonly used in high-end beauty products.

Tocopherol: The fancy-pants name for Vitamin E. While it’s great for skin, Dr. K also uses it to keep products from going rancid. Double-duty ingredients make her madfire happy.