Ingredient Info – Tocopherol

Tocopherol; selbst erstellt; gemeinfrei Kategorie:Bild:Strukturformel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I received an email from a customer the other day.  Her granddaughter and she are going to make lip glosses for her granddaughter’s teachers and friends for Christmas.  She’d looked at my website and noticed I list “T-50” as an ingredient, and she wondered what that is and how she could find it.  This was my response.

T-50 (tocopherol-50) is a natural, broad-spectrum form of Vitamin E.  It’s a very dark amber, viscous liquid.  It’s also rather outrageously expensive right now, too, for some reason.  You can purchase tocopherol acetate easily from pharmacies, grocery stores, etc. where the vitamin supplements are.  They come in gel capsules; you’ve probably seen them before.

Tocopherol is an antioxidant, which means it slows down the oxidation of oils and butters.  Vitamin E, as it’s more commonly known, has no preservative properties at all; it doesn’t kill or prevent the growth of bacteria, mold or fungi.  It slows down the rate at which oils and butters will turn rancid, plus it’s good for skin, but that’s the extent of this fabulous additive.

I don’t mind helping customers find out more about the ingredients I use in my products.  Is there a particular product about which you’d like to learn more?