Calcium Chloride

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Overview

What Is It?

Calcium Chloride is an inorganic salt. In cosmetics and personal care products, it is used in a variety of products including bath oils, make-up products and eye shadows.

Why is it used in cosmetics and personal care products?

Calcium Chloride is used in cosmetic and personal care products as a viscosity increasing agent and as a cosmetic astringent.

Scientific Facts:

Calcium Chloride is a solid at room temperature, and it behaves as a typical ionic halide. It has several common applications such as brine for refrigeration plants, ice and dust control on roads, and in cement. It can be produced directly from limestone, but large amounts are also produced synthetically.

Safety

Safety Information:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has affirmed Calcium Chloride to be Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) for direct addition to food. Calcium Chloride may also be used as an indirect food additive in sanitizing solutions.

More safety Information:

Link to FDA Code of Federal Regulations for Calcium Chloride:

As part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) High Production Volume (HPV) chemical program, the data on Calcium Chloride were reviewed. The reviewers concluded that Calcium Chloride was of low priority for further work based on a low hazard potential.

Link to the OECD Summary on Calcium Chloride: http://www.chem.unep.ch/irptc/sids/oecdsids/10043524.pdf

More scientific Information:

Calcium Chloride is highly hydroscopic, which means that it readily takes up moisture from the air. In particular, Calcium Chloride is used to pack drying tubes to exclude atmospheric moisture from a reaction set-up while allowing gases to escape. It can also be added to liquids to remove suspended or dissolved water. In this capacity, it is known as a drying agent or desiccant.

Resources

Resources:

Find out more about the regulation of Food Additives by the Food and Drug Administration

Food Ingredients and Packaging: http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/default.htm

Food Contact Substances: http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/PackagingFCS/default.htm

Substances Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS): http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/default.htm

Search the Code of Federal Regulations http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfrsearch.cfm

EU Cosmetics Inventory http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cosmetics/cosing/

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Calcium Chloride

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