Pentaerythrityl Rosinate

What Is It?

Pentaerythrityl Rosinate is the ester of rosin acids with the polyol, pentaerythritol. In cosmetics and personal care products, Pentaerythrityl Rosinate has been reported to be used in the formulation of eye shadow, mascara and makeup bases.

Why Is It Used?

Pentaerythrityl Rosinate acts as a lubricant on the skin’s surface, which gives the skin a soft and smooth appearance. It also increases the thickness of the lipid (oil) portion of cosmetics and personal care products.

Scientific Facts

Pentaerythrityl Rosinate, previously called Pentaerythritol Rosinate, is produced from wood rosin, which is a by-product of paper pulping.

Safety Information

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permits Pentaerythrityl Rosinate to be used in chewing gum base. Pentaerythrityl Rosinate is also permitted to be used as an indirect food additive as an adjuvant and production aid. The safety of Pentaerythrityl Rosinate has been assessed by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR)Expert Panel. The CIR Expert Panel evaluated the scientific data and concluded that the available data were insufficient to determine the safety of Pentaerythrityl Rosinate as used in cosmetics and personal care products.

CIR Safety Review: Pentaerythritol Rosinate did not significantly absorb in the UVA or UVB portion of the light spectrum. Formulations with 10% Pentaerythrityl Rosinate produced only minimal ocular irritation.

Likewise tests of formulations with the ingredient at concentrations of 7-9.2% resulted in minimal dermal irritation. The ingredient was nonsensitizing in maximization tests. Clinical tests of formulations with the ingredient at concentrations of 7-9.6% resulted in neither irritation nor sensitization.

No data, however, were provided on possible impurities. Absent information on the actual chemical structure, the lack of information on impurities was considered significant. The absence of genotoxicity data was also considered significant. The CIR Expert Panel concluded that the data were insufficient data to determine safety and and requested additional data on impurities, genotoxicity and dermal penetration.

Link to FDA Code of Federal Regulations for Pentaerythritol ester of rosin

Pentaerthrityl Rosinate may be used in cosmetics and personal care products marketed in Europe according to the general provisions of the Cosmetics Regulation of the European Union.

Link to the EU Cosmetic Regulation:
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/consumers/product_labelling_and_p…

More Scientific Information

Pentaerythrityl Rosinate is the ester of rosin acids with the polyol pentaerythritol. This ingredient is produced by the fractional distillation of crude tall oil to form rosin, which is then esterified with monopentaerythritol. In cosmetics and personal care products, Pentaerythrityl Rosinate functions as a skin conditioning agent – emollient and a viscosity increasing agent – nonaqueous.

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/defaul…

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/