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Carnauba wax, or Copernicia Cerifera Wax, is indeed a cosmetic ingredient rather unknown, from a Palm Tree of Brazil. But be careful, nothing to do with palm oil, quite the contrary. Carnauba wax is a top ingredient, natural, beneficial and environmentally friendly. Want to know more about carnauba and mineral waxes? Follow this article.
Waxes in My Cosmetics: But for What?
When you hear wax, you certainly think more spontaneously candles, wood maintenance or waxing than cosmetic. Hair removal aside, maybe. Still, waxes are very common in cosmetics, and often irreplaceable! Why? For their inimitable properties.
There are many different waxes as animal, vegetable, and mineral waxes. But all have in common a specific texture and very good qualities of heat resistance. They remain malleable but solid below a certain temperature, usually high, called Melting point. They are used to stabilize, bind, adjust viscosity, thicken emulsions. It is easy to spread and offer a long-lasting hold, even when it's hot. Lipsticks, make-up pencils, compact foundation, balms rarely make the standoff over waxes.
Finally, they have a film-forming power: they form a protective film on the skin, softening and smoothing, which can retain moisture. But not all waxes are worth it.
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Animal Waxes: An Ethical Problem
Until the ban on whaling, the most used wax in cosmetics was spermaceti, a substance secreted in the heads of sperm whales. At the cost of a near extinction of the species, ethically (and ecologically) unsustainable today.
However, cosmetics still uses ingredients related to animal exploitation. This is less shocking than when it comes to killing mammals, but beeswax, secreted by honey bees to build their hives, is one of them.
This Cera alba or Cera Flava, the most used natural waxes for millennia, has many advantages: really natural when it is of quality, a pleasant smell of honey and real benefits for the skin. Film-forming without being comedogenic, emollient and rich in vitamin A, anti-inflammatory and sanitizing, healing, etc... To get it, we melt with hot water the alveoli abandoned by bees at the end of the season, without destruction of unused alveoli.
A gentle and ecological process, but insufficient to meet the vegan criteria. Collecting and using wax produced by bees remains an animal farm. Logically, despite all its qualities, the use of beeswax is excluded for us.
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Two solutions remain: mineral waxes, by far the most common in cosmetics, or vegetable waxes.
Mineral Waxes: Environmental Red Card!
Mineral waxes such as solid paraffin or Microcrystalline Wax are derived from petroleum. Very resistant to oxidation, very cheap, they quickly seduced industrialists. An undeniable progress for sperm whales, of course, but at what cost?
With mineral waxes, we spread hydrocarbons (miam) and we pollute throughout their life cycle: problematic extraction, use of non-renewable resources, discharge into water when they are not biodegradable. Let's put in the same basket the synthetic silicone waxes (Dimethicone, in particular), equally polluting to produce, and which participate in an ecological disaster: the catastrophic micro-plastics.
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Moreover, all organic labels exclude mineral waxes as synthetic.
Carnauba Wax: Ecological and Sustainable Exploitation
On the wax side of Carnauba, it's a completely different story. The tree from which it originated, the Copernica Cerifera, is a palm tree in northeastern Brazil with incredible leaves: measuring up to two meters in diameter, they secrete a fabulous substance. A waxy powder that protects them from dehydration, even under intense heat. Harvested by simple manual threshing of dried leaves a few days in the sun, it is simply melted with hot water, centrifuged and then filtered from its impurities. And here is our Carnauba wax, perfectly natural and biodegradable.
A natural production but also an economic opportunity for local people, particularly respectful of ecosystems. Neither tree cutting nor forced yield to strengthen phyto-sanitary products: Copernica Cerifera grows naturally. There is no need to clear primary forests to give way to large artificial palm groves. Better: it is the forests themselves that become a valuable resource to preserve! A logic far removed from this palm oil, scourge of Indonesian forests. And Brazil is not left behind: palm, too, but also soybeans, cattle breeding, tourism infrastructure... devour daily hectares of amazonian green lung.
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Ecological, very similar to beeswax but vegan, Carnauba wax has everything good!
Carnauba Wax, A Cosmetic Ingredient of Choice
The ecological issue automatically disqualifies mineral waxes. But opting for Carnauba wax is not only a good eco-friendly: it is a very interesting ingredient for formulating healthy and natural quality cosmetics.
You may also like to read - Natural Remedies for Acne, Pimples and Black Spots.
Petrochemical and Synthetic Waxes: We Pass Our Way
If no toxicity has been demonstrated for mineral waxes used in cosmetics, they are frankly not recommended for our epidermis. Occlusive, comedogenic: needless to say, oily skin does not appreciate them very much. But the fragile skin they irritate neither! For dry skin, it's even worse.
The waterproof layer that mineral waxes deposit on the epidermis gives it a feeling of immediate comfort. Superficial, ephemeral and counterproductive: below, the skin, deprived of air moisture and real assets, Withers and can no longer do without its mineral crutch.
Your lips that crack without their 10 daily doses of petrochemical stick? The fault with waxes and mineral oils. Of-course, silicone waxes are no more beneficial for the epidermis. Also beware of green washing, very common: pseudo vegetable waxes put forward on a packaging that are in reality only a mixture of hydrogenated oils devoid of any virtue. Only few brands guarantees the presence of natural wax in your cosmetics.
Carnauba Wax: Additive but Also Active
With Carnauba wax, no health hazard: no risk of irritation or allergy, zero toxin on the horizon. It is also used for the coating of medicines and allowed in food.
Wax with high melting point (about 85°C), with very strong film-forming power, more resistant than vegetable waxes, it is at the top to formulate sticks or balms. It solidifies them while maintaining moisture and prevents any sticky sensation on the skin.
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But using Carnauba wax only as a texture or shine agent would be really a pity. With its waxy esters, fatty acids and alcohols, resins, neutral odor, Carnauba wax has a strong emollient power and effectively protects the epidermis without clogging it. The film it deposits on the skin is at the same time very protective, water resistant but light and not comedogenic.
Finally, it is particularly rich in antioxidants. We are far from the additive. And all skins appreciate it: oily skin for its antibacterial, softening and smoothing action, without clogging the pores. But most of all, of course, fragile, sensitive and even irritated epidermis.
The top, for natural lip balms. And, of course, for our armpits whose epidermis, between perspiration and hair removal, is put to the test. Carnauba wax is unmatched to formulate a deodorant balm stick, the most recommended Galenic for the skin. It helps to give it its pleasant texture, hold and softness to the skin. In short to make it much more than a simple way to fight against sweat odors.
Totally in line with our values and requirements, Carnauba wax is the vegetable wax that ticks all the boxes for skin, health, the environment. A real sweetheart! 😏😏😏
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