We’re looking for commercially available, biodegradable, sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to mineral oil (light liquid paraffin oil) for application in cosmetic products.

Mineral oil has been traditionally used as part of cosmetic formulations due to its ability to keep the skin moisturized. However, mineral oil originates from crude oil. To stop using crude oil-based products — and therefore reduce our CO2 footprint — we want to identify non-fossil-based alternatives to mineral oil.

We want to find commercially available alternatives to mineral oil that would be sustainable and cost-effective, while preserving the most important physical and chemical parameters of mineral oil. 

More specifically, the proposed alternative(s) should possess the following characteristics:

Must have:

• Natural origin index- >0.5 (ISO 16128)
• Biodegradability - ≥ 70% (as per OECD test guidelines)
• Refractive index (≥ 1.4620) @20°C (as per European Pharmacopeia method using Abbe-Refractomenter)
• Peroxide value ≤ 5 meqO2 /kg

Good to have:

• Chemically modified non-food grade oils (2nd/3rd generation feedstocks)
• Emollient chemistries based on alternate feedstocks
• Viscosity @ 40°C: 15.0 – 18.5 cSt
• Medium to low polarity
• Operating pH – 4 -10
• High molecular weight, preferably branched chain, and bulky molecules (slow to absorb in skin)
• Hypoallergenic ingredients
• Provided solution should be easy to scale up, shouldn’t require investments for specific manufacturing technology, equipment etc. Also provided solution should be compatible with cosmetic formulation base
• Ready to use technology.
• Availability of ingredient samples for lab and pilot plant trials

Should NOT have or be:

• Non-sustainable, fossil-based ingredients
• Animals based ingredients
• Ingredients with known toxicological, allergic profile
• Use of micro plastic
• Use of parabens, methylisothiazolinone, methylchloroisothiazolinone, ethylhexylglycerin for preservation
• Silicone oils

Cost Considerations:

• Cost should not be higher than 2 Euro/kg