Skincare without coconut: moisturisers, cleansers, serums and masks

An ingredient list on a face cream can run to forty names. It gets manageable once you know that a moisturiser only does three things, and that coconut is involved in one of them.

The three jobs

DermNet, the dermatologists' reference, divides what is in a moisturiser into three [1]:

• Occlusives sit on top of the skin and stop water leaving.
• Humectants pull water in.
• Emollients are the oily part that makes skin feel smooth.

Add water, something to hold the oil and water together, and a preservative, and that is a cream.

What is not coconut

The occlusives. None of the classic ones comes from a plant at all.

Ingredient	What it is
Petrolatum (petroleum jelly), paraffin	Listed by DermNet among the occlusives [1]
Mineral oil (paraffinum liquidum)	Liquid hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum [2]
Dimethicone	A silicone: a mixture of siloxane polymers [3]
Lanolin, lanolin alcohol	From the fleece of sheep [4]
Squalane	From shark liver oil, from olive oil, or from fermented sugar [5]

Lanolin is a known contact allergen in its own right [4]. Not being coconut doesn't make an ingredient right for you. It only settles this one question.

What is coconut

The emollients are where it lives.

• Cocos nucifera oil, hydrogenated coconut oil: coconut oil itself, pressed from the dried flesh [6].
• Caprylic/capric triglyceride: the commonest light oil in modern creams. The cosmetics industry's safety review describes it as made from coconut oil [7]. On this site it counts as coconut. The products that contain it.
• Coco-caprylate/caprate: esters of coconut alcohol [8].
• Cocoglycerides: derived from coconut oil [6].
• Coco-glucoside, sodium cocoyl…, cocamidopropyl…: the cleansers. More on those below.

What can't be told from the label

Then there is the middle of the list: the waxy, creamy ingredients that give a lotion its body. They are made from fatty acids, and fatty acids come from whichever fat is cheapest.

• Cetyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol: from coconut oil, from tallow, or built from petroleum [9].
• Stearic acid, and the glyceryl stearate made from it: from tallow or from vegetable oils [10].
• Glycerin: a by-product of processing any fat or oil, and it can be synthetic [11].
• Isopropyl myristate: myristic acid comes from coconut or palm kernel oil [8, 10].
• Sodium lauroyl lactylate and other lauroyl and lauryl names: lauric acid is commonly isolated from coconut oil [10].

On this site these are marked "can't be verified". Only the manufacturer knows, which is why we write and ask.

Caprylyl glycol deserves its own line, because it is in almost everything as a preservative booster. The same industry review describes it as commonly made synthetically and mentions no coconut source [12]. Plant-based grades exist as well: one large supplier makes its "green" version from palm kernel oil [19]. The label doesn't say which kind is in the jar, so we mark it "can't be verified".

Five best-sellers, read

Product	What the list shows
Vaseline	White petrolatum, 100% [13]
Aquaphor Healing Ointment	Petrolatum, panthenol, glycerin, mineral oil, ceresin, bisabolol, lanolin alcohol [13]
Eucerin Original Healing Cream	Water, petrolatum, mineral oil, ceresin, lanolin alcohol [13]
Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream	Water, glycerin, petrolatum, dicaprylyl ether, dimethicone, glyceryl stearate, cetyl alcohol [13]
CeraVe Moisturizing Cream	Water, glycerin, cetearyl alcohol, caprylic/capric triglyceride, cetyl alcohol, ceteareth-20, petrolatum; also sodium lauroyl lactylate [13]

Read down that table and the pattern shows. The old-fashioned greasy ointments are petroleum and lanolin, with nothing from coconut. The lighter and more modern the texture, the more of the list comes from fatty acids.

The same holds in our registry: every face cream and serum marked "contains coconut" so far is there because of caprylic/capric triglyceride.

Cleansers are a different problem

A face wash, a micellar water and a makeup-remover wipe are detergent products. They are built like shampoo, on coconut-derived cleansers, and they are where "contains coconut" is commonest.

From our registry:

• A micellar water: coco-glucoside
• A foaming acne wash: cocamidopropyl betaine
• Makeup remover wipes: cocoamphodiacetate, cocoglycerides

How to find a shampoo without coconut explains those names, and Soap without coconut covers bars.

An oil or balm cleanser has no detergent to speak of, but it is an oil: read it for caprylic/capric triglyceride and coconut oil.

Serums and sheet masks

Water-based serums and sheet masks have little oil in them, so they seldom list coconut by name. What they do have is glycerin and caprylyl glycol, which is why most of the ones in our registry sit at "can't be verified" rather than at either end. A serum with nothing flagged but glycerin is typical of the best case.

Words on the front that don't help

"Hypoallergenic." The FDA is blunt: there are no federal standards or definitions for the term, and it "means whatever a particular company wants it to mean" [14].

"Natural." The FDA has not defined it for cosmetics [15]. For this allergy it can point the wrong way: the ingredients on this page that are never coconut are petroleum, silicone and sheep's wool, and the ones that are coconut are plants.

"For sensitive skin", "dermatologist tested", "clean". We found no official definition of any of them.

"Fragrance-free" and "paraben-free" are about other allergens. Useful if those are yours. Silent about coconut.

The same name, a different formula

A product sold under one name can have different ingredients in different countries. Two entries in our registry had to be labelled by region for that reason. An ingredient list you find online may be for another market's version.

In the EU and the UK the list must be on the container or the packaging [16]. In the US it must be on the label, in descending order down to 1%, after which the order is free [17]. We found no rule in either place that requires the list to appear on a web page.

So the list that counts is the one on the pack in your hand. To find out what a name on it is, the European Commission's CosIng database is the official reference [18], and our list of coconut's names is the short version.

Coconut oil as a skincare product

Coconut oil is recommended everywhere as a moisturiser in its own right, including for eczema, and there is real research behind that. There is also a reason for caution in babies with eczema, and if a coconut allergy is already diagnosed it is not a treatment to try. Coconut oil allergy has the trials and the caveat; babies and children has what allergy bodies advise.

What to do

• Know which allergy you have. If you react to coconut as a food, the evidence that refined ingredients on the skin matter is thin. If patch testing found a contact allergy, the ingredient you were positive to is the one to search for. The two kinds of coconut allergy.
• For the least to check, go greasy. Petroleum jelly and the plain ointments have the shortest lists.
• In a cream, look for caprylic/capric triglyceride, coco-caprylate, cocoglycerides and Cocos nucifera.
• In a cleanser, look for anything starting coco-, cocoyl, cocamido-.
• Photograph the label and the checker sorts every name into coconut, not coconut, and can't be verified.
• Start from what's been read: face and body in the registry.

Related

Soap without coconut · Sunscreen · Makeup · Where coconut hides · The complete guide

Sources

1. DermNet. “Emollients and moisturisers.” dermnetnz.org
2. US 21 CFR 172.878, white mineral oil. law.cornell.edu
3. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Safety assessment of dimethicone and related polymers, 2020. PDF
4. DermNet. “Contact reactions to lanolin.” dermnetnz.org
5. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Safety assessment of squalane and squalene. PDF
6. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. “Amended Safety Assessment of Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil…”, 2008. PDF
7. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. “Amended Safety Assessment of Triglycerides as Used in Cosmetics”, 2018. PDF
8. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Safety assessment of alkyl esters, 2012. PDF
9. NIH PubChem, “1-Hexadecanol”, methods of manufacturing. pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Safety assessment of stearyl alcohol, 1985. PDF
10. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Safety assessment of fatty acids and fatty acid salts, 2019. PDF
11. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Safety assessment of glycerin, 2014. PDF
12. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Safety assessment of 1,2-glycols. PDF
13. Labels read October 2026: Vaseline, on DailyMed · Aquaphor · Eucerin Original Healing Cream · Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream · CeraVe Moisturizing Cream
14. US FDA. “‘Hypoallergenic’ cosmetics.” fda.gov
15. US FDA. “Small businesses and homemade cosmetics: fact sheet.” fda.gov
16. Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products, Article 19. legislation.gov.uk
17. US 21 CFR 701.3. law.cornell.edu
18. European Commission. Cosmetic ingredient database (CosIng). ec.europa.eu
19. Personal Care Insights. Report on Symrise's bio-based caprylyl glycol, April 2022. personalcareinsights.com

Educational only, not medical advice. Always confirm with your allergist.