Behenyl alcohol is, in my opinion, a better thickener to use in comparison to cetyl alcohol. In my experimentation, behenyl offers a conditioning feeling that cetyl alone doesn’t seem to have. It, too, is used to make emulsions thick and creamy, but it adds what can be described as a “velvety” dry but moisturized feeling to the creams I’ve made.
Behenyl alcohol is not a regular, drying ‘alcohol’. Its a ‘fatty’ alcohol that’s vegetable derived.
It serves as a co-emulsifier in that it helps the main emulsifier to bind the oil and the water together to further stabilize the mix.
As an aside, I notice that when I heat up the oil phase when it includes behenyl, and mix it with the heated water phase, I get what looks like a noticeable bubbling up as if its fizzing (but not like a bath bomb fizz) before it bubbles back down.
As you’re whipping the mix, you will also notice a lot of bubbles, imo. Behenyl alcohol adds a creaminess to the body of emulsions and increases viscosity. It can also improve or thicken the texture of whipped butters too.
Recommended Use Rate: 1 – 25% (lotioncrafter.com)
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