when you look at the ingredient lists of products like shower gel, conditioner etc. there are often several types of alcohol included…what’s the difference between these alcohols?

Question

A shower thought of mine haha

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

It’s simple. An alcohol is a carbon chain (CH-)that ends with an hydroxyl group (-OH). Ethyl alcohol (or ethanol aka drinking alcohol) has a carbon chain length of 2. The alcohols used in a lotion or conditioner are called fatty alcohols because they have a long carbon chain. Cetyl alcohol has a carbon chain length of 16. Stearyl alcohol is 18. Behenyl is 22. The higher in carbon chain length you go, the “heavier” the molecule and “fattier” it is. Thats why ethanol is a liquid (its lighter) with a carbon chain length of 2 and cetyl alcohol is solid wax with a chain length of 16.

Source – Cosmetic Chemist