PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate ●
TL;DR. This ingredient is a nonionic thickener and viscosity builder for shampoos, body washes, and facial cleansers. It helps stabilize foam, improve mildness, and give surfactant systems a richer feel without relying only on salt thickening.
What does PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate do in a cosmetic formula?
This ingredient is a nonionic thickener and viscosity builder for shampoos, body washes, and facial cleansers. It helps stabilize foam, improve mildness, and give surfactant systems a richer feel without relying only on salt thickening.
Is PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate clean?
Clean-beauty frameworks often flag it because it is made through ethoxylation, which brings residue-control expectations for ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane. In finished formulas it is generally low-irritation and used for texture and viscosity control rather than direct skin activity.
Is PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate sustainable?
This material is semi-synthetic, combining sugar and fatty-acid derived portions with a petrochemical-derived ethoxylated chain. It is not a strong sustainability fit because the ethoxylation step uses nonrenewable inputs and the large water-soluble polymeric portion can be slower to fully biodegrade than simple plant oils or sugars.
Is PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate COSMOS-approved?
It is not permitted in COSMOS-natural or COSMOS-organic products because ethoxylated materials are outside the standard. From a Green Chemistry view, the renewable sugar and fatty-acid pieces are positives, but they are offset by ethoxylation, residue management, and less straightforward end-of-life behavior.
How does PEG-120 Methyl Glucose Dioleate work chemically?
The molecule is a high-molecular-weight nonionic surfactant and associative thickener built from a sugar-derived core, two unsaturated C18 fatty ester tails, and a long ethoxylated segment averaging about 120 oxyethylene units. Typical use levels in rinse-off surfactant systems are often around 0.5 to 3%, and it is compatible with anionic and amphoteric surfactants in mildly acidic to neutral cleanser pH ranges.
Last updated 2026-05-13