Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate ●
TL;DR. This ingredient is primarily a visual-effect material, adding shimmer, sparkle, opacity, or a soft-focus look in color cosmetics, nail products, and some skin-care formulas. It is often used as a platelet-like substrate that can be coated with other mineral pigments for pearlescent effects.
What does Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate do in a cosmetic formula?
This ingredient is primarily a visual-effect material, adding shimmer, sparkle, opacity, or a soft-focus look in color cosmetics, nail products, and some skin-care formulas. It is often used as a platelet-like substrate that can be coated with other mineral pigments for pearlescent effects.
Is Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate clean?
From a clean-beauty perspective, it is generally viewed as inert and low-irritation on intact skin, with more attention paid to particle size, inhalation exposure in loose powders, and trace heavy-metal specifications. It does not carry the same clean-standard friction as plastic glitter, but documentation on coatings and impurities still matters.
Is Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate sustainable?
This material is mineral-derived and manufactured through high-temperature processing, so its footprint is tied more to energy use than agriculture or petrochemical sourcing. It is not biodegradable in the usual organic-material sense, but it is inorganic, non-bioaccumulative, and generally considered environmentally inert.
Is Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate COSMOS-approved?
COSMOS alignment is partial: inorganic mineral-type color and effect materials may be acceptable when they meet purity and processing requirements, but synthetic-effect substrates and coatings need supplier-level verification. From a Green Chemistry lens, it scores well for inertness and low reactivity, less well for renewability and energy intensity.
How does Calcium Aluminum Borosilicate work chemically?
The molecule is not a discrete molecule, but an amorphous inorganic platelet network built from silica-based oxides modified with metal oxides for hardness, transparency, and refractive behavior. It is stable across normal cosmetic pH ranges, commonly appears at low single-digit percentages for radiance and higher levels in color cosmetics, and is often combined with mineral coatings to tune sparkle, opacity, and shade.
Last updated 2026-05-13