What is Squalene?
Squalene is a colorless poly-unsaturated hydrocarbon liquid that’s found naturally in many animals and plants, including human sebum. Essentially, it’s one of the many natural lipids your body produces to lubricate and protect your skin.
Use of squalane?
Squalene/alkane is a component that exists in the skin itself. It is very skin-friendly and can be highly compatible with the sebum secreted by the skin. It forms a breathable protective film on the surface of the skin and exerts the effect of moisturizing and moisturizing. It can effectively relieve dry skin and maintain skin elasticity and plumpness.
The permeability of squalane is very good, it can enter the skin, replenish cell lipids, and nourish the skin. After massaging the skin with squalane, the skin will become soft, moist and elastic, which is the result of squalane penetrating into the skin to play a role.
Squalane is an alkane structure, strictly speaking, it does not belong to oil. Good extensibility, smooth skin feel, not greasy, not heavy. Mild in nature, non-sensitizing, and does not cause acne and acne. Medium moisturizing, most skin can be used. The price of squalane is relatively expensive, and it is generally used in relatively high-end cosmetics.
Squalane will form a breathable and water-permeable protective film on the surface of the skin. The advantage is that it is not thick, but it has a medium moisturizing degree. In particularly dry and cold seasons, if only squalane is used, the water-locking ability is not enough, and other products need to be used together.
Through the above analysis, squalane is a very good emollient oil with good moisturizing effect and good permeability. But apart from moisturizing, other effects are not particularly obvious, so everyone should pay attention to this.
Kinds of squalane?
There are three main types of squalane on the market:
- squalane extracted from shark liver;
- plant squalane;
- synthetic squalane.Due to the different production methods, the performance has certain differences.
Shark Extracted Squalane:
The earliest squalane was hydrogenated after extracting squalene from shark liver. However, every 3,000 sharks can produce 1 ton of squalane, which is far from meeting human needs. In addition, large-scale killing of sharks has caused great damage to the natural ecosystem of the ocean. Under constant protests from animal protection organizations in various countries, the European Union has banned the use of animal squalane as a cosmetic raw material.
Although the extraction of squalane from shark livers has caused huge damage to marine ecology, Japan has been using it from shark livers in line with the wonderful concept of “Japanese skin is the most sensitive skin in the world, and the safest cosmetics should be used”. The extracted squalane, in the final analysis, is still reluctant to give up the commercial profits obtained. Four out of five of the world’s largest squalane factories are in Japan. This kind of squalane raw material is scarce, the price is relatively expensive, and the effect is the best among many squalanes. There are very few products that actually use this squalane.
Phyto-squalane:
Many plants also contain squalene, and olive oil is a relatively high content of oil components. Many of the squalane on the market are extracted from olive oil and then hydrogenated, which is called plant squalane. There is also squalane derived from other vegetable oils. Most of the squalane used in EU cosmetics is plant squalane. The skin care effect of plant squalane and animal squalane is similar, but there is no damage to marine ecological resources. The price of vegetable squalane is cheaper, but overall it is still more expensive.
Synthetic squalane:
In order to meet the market demand for squalane and to search for cheaper raw materials, it is now possible to chemically synthesize raw materials with properties similar to squalane, such as hydrogenated polyisobutene. Hydrogenated polyisobutylene is a synthetic polymer with moisturizing, moisturizing and lubricating properties, similar to natural squalane, but much cheaper. Mainly used in lipsticks, creams, etc.
Most of the squalane sold in the market is this kind of synthetic squalane, which is cheap. Although it has the characteristics of natural squalane, the effect is still weaker.
To sum up, squalane is an excellent skin care oil with good emollient effect and strong moisturizing properties, making the skin soft and elastic when it can be used; the skin feels smooth, not greasy and heavy; it is mild in nature and generally does not cause skin sensitivity. However, she has limited effects in whitening and anti-aging, and cannot expect too much from him.
