What is Vaseline?
Vaseline is a trademark of Unilever, and is a white or yellow jelly-like paraffin-based mixture made by distilling various oils from petroleum and decolorizing and refining the remaining residue. It is called petroleum jelly or petrolatum. It is usually written as 100% petroleum jelly, but it is not a single substance, but a paraffin-based complex made of various hydrocarbons. According to the foreign word notation rules set by the National Institute of the Korean Language, it is 'Vaseline', but the official trademark used by Unilever Korea is 'Vaseline'. Vaseline is a combination of the German word for water, Wasser, and the Greek word for olive oil, Elaion, and is called Vasenol in Spanish.
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| Vaseline |
The Birth of Vaseline
Oil workers used to apply it as an ointment to wounds and burns, and this gave them the idea to refine this road wax and begin research to develop it into a wound healing agent.
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| Device design and mark with triple-purification seal |
Five years later, in 1870, the extraction and refining process was finally completed, and the first factory was opened in Brooklyn, where it was released to the market under the name "Wonder Jelly." Then, in 1872, a patent was obtained for a manufacturing method that improved the quality of Vaseline by adding a vacuum process to the existing refining process. In this patent, Wonder Jelly was registered as "Vaseline," and its official name thereafter became Vaseline.
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| Original US patent application for the Vaseline product (US127568A) |
Vaseline is a semi-solid substance of hydrocarbons with various functions such as lubrication, coating, and moisturizing. It is characterized by melting at 37 degrees, which is close to human body temperature. When applied to wounded areas, it coats the area to prevent bacterial infection and moisturizes, speeding up healing. It can be used for a long time because it does not oxidize in the air.
In 1859, American chemist Robert Chesbrough discovered a sticky byproduct called rod wax that was naturally produced during the oil drilling process at an oil field facility in Pennsylvania.
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| oil drilling |
In 1865, Chesbrough patented a process for triple refining petroleum jelly that took five years to develop.
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| Robert Chesbrough, the inventor of Vaseline |
Initially, the response was lukewarm, so Chesbrough is said to have promoted the product by driving a wagon full of Vaseline around New York City, deliberately cutting and burning himself to demonstrate how to apply the Vaseline himself, and handing out free samples.
As a result, by 1874, Vaseline was a huge hit, selling 1,400 bottles a day across the United States.
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| A carriage carrying Vaseline for promotional purposes 100 years ago and a glass bottle containing Vaseline |
This popularity led to numerous counterfeit products being released in the 1880s, but Chesbro introduced the blue seal package to prevent confusion, which is still used today and has become Vaseline's symbol.
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| Vaseline's Blue Seal in its early days (left) and present (right) |
In 1883, Queen Victoria of England knighted Chesbrough for his use of Vaseline as a skin moisturizer. Since Vaseline does not freeze, it was used as a moisturizer during Arctic exploration in 1909. In 1917, it was used to treat minor wounds and burns of soldiers during World War I, and in World War II, sterile Vaseline® Jelly-coated gauze was made and used to treat soldiers' wounds and burns.
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Aluminum tube of Vaseline used in World War I (left) and sterile Vaseline® Jelly coated gauze used in World War II |
In fact, mascara was also born thanks to Vaseline. In 1915, Tom Lyle Williams saw his sister Mabel mix Vaseline with coal dust to make her eyebrows look thicker and darker, and this led to the creation of Maybelline, now a global company.
Is Vaseline Really Safe?
As shown in the figure below, compounds with two or more hexagonal benzene rings are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, and they are substances that originally exist in large quantities in crude oil and coal. Most of these substances are very stable in physicochemical terms and do not decompose naturally, so they easily accumulate in the environment and the body, and their toxicity, such as causing cancer, has been reported. A representative example is benzo [a] pyrene, which is produced when grilling meat.
There is no safety issue with Vaseline if properly purified. The story that Vaseline is a carcinogen refers to cases where it is contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PHAs), which are impurity residues generated during the naphtha cracking process due to the nature of petroleum oil (Breast Cancer Fund. Web. Aug. 10, 2015).
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| Different types of PAH |
According to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) of Petroleum Jelly from the Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency, it is classified as a carcinogen 1B. Chemical substances are classified as 1A, 1B, and 2 according to the 'Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS)' guidelines established by the UN (Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor Notice No. 2016-19), and 1B refers to a substance for which there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in test animals or limited evidence of carcinogenicity in both test animals and humans.
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| MSDS of Petroleum Jelly from the Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency |
In Korea, the classification of Petroleum Jelly as 1B is based on the EU CLP regulation, and the European Union (EU) classifies petroleum jelly as a carcinogen according to the classification, labeling and packaging regulation (CLP regulation) 1272/2008/EC.
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| EU classifies petroleum jelly as a carcinogen |
However, when used as cosmetics, use is permitted only if the product has gone through an appropriate purification process and has been purified to 0% of carcinogens such as PAHs in accordance with Regulation (EC) no. 1223/2009.
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| EC no. 1223/2009. |
The United States, like Korea, does not regulate the refining and PAH content of Vaseline when used for cosmetics, but allows it to be used as food if it meets FDA 21 CFR 172.880 standards.
So, if Vaseline itself has gone through a sufficient refining process to remove impurities such as PHAs, it is safe enough to be eaten as food.
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| The United States allows it to be used as food if it meets FDA 21 CFR 172.880 standards. |
If it is USP grade or Vaseline distributed in Europe, then its safety is guaranteed, so it is okay to use it, but since there is no regulation in Korea for Vaseline distributed domestically, there is honestly no way to check whether PAHs have been properly purified.
However, in order to be carcinogenic, it must be absorbed into the body, whether transdermally or orally, but if it is used only for moisturizing unwounded skin as an external agent, I think there is no problem with safety. This is because Vaseline has a large molecular weight, so it is not absorbed into the skin. Moisturizers that provide moisturizing effects by coating the skin surface without being absorbed into the skin like Vaseline are called occlusive moisturizers.
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| Occlusive moisturizer coats the skin surface like a barrier to prevent moisture loss. |
So, if you use the original Vaseline with the blue cap produced by Unilever (150 years of experience is considered to guarantee its safety) only for external use, it seems to be okay. There is nothing wrong with avoiding chemicals, but the carcinogenic potential of Vaseline seems to be a bit exaggerated. Benzo(a)pyrene is also a PHA and a class 1 carcinogen, but it is a common substance found in coffee that we easily drink in our daily lives, and we consume about 40-60mg every day. However, unless it is USP food grade, it is better to avoid using it as a lip balm that can be licked or used as an internal agent such as applying to wounds.
White Vaseline VS Yellow Vaseline
Unilever's blue-capped Vaseline is light yellow, and there are other products sold as white Vaseline besides Unilever products. It is known that yellow Vaseline becomes white when further refined, and USP food grade Vaseline is white. However, not all white Vaseline sold on the market is USP certified, so it cannot be said with certainty that there are no residual PAHs just because it is white.
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| USP grade Vaseline is white, but not all white Vaseline is USP grade. |
Mineral oil vs. Vaseline
Mineral oil is a by-product of the crude oil refining process (Japour, M. J. (1939), so it is also called mineral oil. The main components are alkanes and paraffins, and it is very cheap because it is mass-produced. Commonly sold as Johnson's Baby Oil is mineral oil with added fragrance. Petroleum must go through a refining process before it can be used, and petroleum jelly is a semi-solid wax component obtained during the drilling process (high temperature and high pressure), while mineral oil is a liquid by-product obtained after refining gasoline. Mineral oil and petroleum jelly are both obtained from petroleum, but they are obtained at different stages, have different properties, and have different carbon numbers.
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| crude oil distillation unit |
So it is correct to see the two as different substances, but in Korea, Vaseline is usually used as a sub-concept of mineral oil. In any case, since both are oils derived from petroleum, if they are not properly refined, the possibility of PHAs cannot be ruled out. However, mineral oil is also hardly absorbed into the skin. Only a very small portion is absorbed into the stratum corneum, and there is no evidence in any study that it penetrates deeper and is absorbed percutaneously (Toxicology Letter 280, 2017, 70-78). Therefore, if mineral oil is only used as a moisturizer for healthy skin (external application), it seems that it is not harmful to health.
Vaseline for burns
Historically, Vaseline has been used for minor abrasions and burns, but Vaseline itself does not have wound healing functionality. Rather, it acts like a moist bandage to seal the wound area, preventing foreign substances from penetrating the wound while it heals, and retains moisture to help the wound heal quickly (2011, Davis-Sivasothy, A. pp.83. SAJA). However, it is not recommended to apply anything, including Vaseline, to second-degree burns or higher that cause blisters. The moist environment of blisters promotes the growth of bacteria, and applying Vaseline to such wounds can cause further growth of bacteria and trap heat, worsening the wound.
Vaseline on the face
Vaseline is not absorbed into the skin and does not clog pores (International J of Cosmetic Sci. 2012; Cosmeceuticals. 2nd ed. 2009). That is why Vaseline’s homepage advertises it as non-comedogenic, which is not a lie. However, occlusive moisturizers like Vaseline can block oxygen in the pores, further proliferating anaerobic bacteria like acne bacteria and worsening skin troubles. It may not be the case for dry skin that does not secrete even a single grain of oil, but for the average person, you really need to be careful about how much you use on your face. It is true that it does not clog pores, but it can cause acne.
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| It is not recommended to apply Vaseline alone to the face. |
Here's a tip: if you apply cream first and then apply Vaseline on top, there will be no trouble. Since cream contains preservatives, I think that even if you apply Vaseline on top to seal the skin, it may inhibit the growth of bacteria such as acne bacteria. Or, you can mix Vaseline and cream and apply it. There is currently no substance with as good moisturizing power as Vaseline, so if you find a method that suits you and use it appropriately, it is definitely a useful cosmetic for your skin.
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