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

These are usually surfactants if it’s a shampoo you’re looking at. Surfactants are the molecules that soak up grease and dirt and are found detergents. They are much different from the alcohol that you know and love.

They are alcohol ethoxylates which is a fancy way of describing a molecule which one side is a type of oily alcohol (fatty alcohol) which repels water but likes oils, fats and grease, and the other side a water loving bunch of carbons and oxygens stretched into a long chain. When this is put into water, the water repelling side attracts grease, oils and dirt, and the water loving side helps to suspend what the other half has picked up in the water, meaning you can now rinse and wash away whatever you were trying to clean. Without the alcohol ethoxylate the grease and oil wouldn’t mix with the water and it wouldn’t move. If you’ve ever had hair wax and tried to wash it out with just water you’d know what an awful mess it makes.

The ‘alcohol’ really only describes the functional group of a part of the molecule. You’d poison yourself quite badly, and you’d never get drunk on it. If you tried to substitute it for your favourite whiskey.