Peg-20 ●
TL;DR. This ingredient primarily functions as a water-soluble humectant, solvent, and texture modifier. It helps dissolve or disperse other ingredients and can add slip without much oiliness.
What does Peg-20 do in a cosmetic formula?
This ingredient primarily functions as a water-soluble humectant, solvent, and texture modifier. It helps dissolve or disperse other ingredients and can add slip without much oiliness.
Is Peg-20 clean?
Clean beauty frameworks often flag this ingredient because ethoxylated materials can carry residual ethylene oxide or 1,4-dioxane if purification is poor. In finished formulas it is usually low-irritation, so the main issue is supplier quality control rather than routine skin tolerance.
Is Peg-20 sustainable?
This material is commonly made from petrochemical feedstocks through ethoxylation. It is water-soluble and lower molecular weight versions are generally more biodegradable than larger synthetic polymers, but it is not a renewable-forward choice.
Is Peg-20 COSMOS-approved?
This ingredient is not permitted in COSMOS natural or organic formulas because the manufacturing route falls outside the standard’s allowed chemistry. From a Green Chemistry view, it has compromises around nonrenewable feedstock and residual-processing controls, even though it performs efficiently at low levels.
How does Peg-20 work chemically?
The molecule is a linear polyether diol with an average chain length of about 20 oxyethylene repeat units and an approximate molecular weight near 950 g/mol. It is water-miscible, stable across typical cosmetic pH ranges, and commonly used around 0.5% to 10% depending on whether the formula needs humectancy, solubilization, or texture adjustment.
Last updated 2026-05-13