Stearalkonium Bentonite ●
TL;DR. This ingredient is an oil-phase rheology modifier and suspending agent. It thickens anhydrous formulas, helps stabilize pigments and solids, and supports gel textures in products like lip color, mascara, and mineral sunscreen.
What does Stearalkonium Bentonite do in a cosmetic formula?
This ingredient is an oil-phase rheology modifier and suspending agent. It thickens anhydrous formulas, helps stabilize pigments and solids, and supports gel textures in products like lip color, mascara, and mineral sunscreen.
Is Stearalkonium Bentonite clean?
From a clean-beauty perspective, it has friction because it is a chemically modified mineral material made with a cationic conditioning compound. It is generally used at low levels and is not a common sensitizer, but its modification chemistry puts it outside many stricter natural-standard frameworks.
Is Stearalkonium Bentonite sustainable?
This material starts with mined clay, which is abundant but nonrenewable and extraction has land-use impacts. The mineral portion is environmentally persistent by nature, while the organic treatment is less aligned with simple biodegradability expectations.
Is Stearalkonium Bentonite COSMOS-approved?
It is not permitted under COSMOS-natural or COSMOS-organic standards because the chemically modified cationic treatment does not fit the standard’s allowed mineral-processing rules. From a Green Chemistry view, it is useful at low levels but has weak alignment due to mining, synthetic modification, and limited biodegradability.
How does Stearalkonium Bentonite work chemically?
The molecule is best understood as layered smectite clay whose surface has been exchanged with long-chain cationic groups, making the platelets compatible with oils rather than water. It is commonly used around 0.5 to 5 percent, often with polar activators or high-shear processing to fully build viscosity and suspension.
Last updated 2026-05-13