Calcium Chloride

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?

Calcium Chloride is used in cosmetic and personal care products as a viscosity increasing agent and as a cosmetic astringentIngredients that induce a tightening or tingling sensation of the skin..

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 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 additiveIndirect food additives are additives that may become part of the food in trace amounts due to its packaging, storage or other handling. For example, minute amounts of packaging substances may find their way into foods during storage. in sanitizing solutions.

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

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“GRAS” is an acronym for the phrase Generally Recognized As Safe. Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act), any substance that is intentionally added to food is a food additive, that is subject to premarket review and approval by FDA, unless the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use, or unless the use of the substance is otherwise excluded from the definition of a food additive.): 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/