Squalane: a fully saturated emollient that will not oxidise
Squalane is C30H62 with a viscosity near 30 mPa s and an iodine value close to zero. Olive against sugarcane grades, purity levels and use at 5 to 100 percent.
Squalane is bought for one property that no vegetable oil has: it cannot go rancid, because there is nothing left in the molecule to oxidise. It is a fully saturated C30 hydrocarbon, made by hydrogenating squalene recovered from olive refining, from sugarcane fermentation or, still, from deep sea shark liver. This page covers the physical data, what the purity figure on a certificate actually buys, and why 5 percent often does most of the work that 50 percent is sold for.
Squalane is C30H62, molecular weight 422, viscosity around 25 to 35 mPa s at 25 C, pour point below minus 30 C and iodine value below 1. Buy a grade assaying at least 92 percent, because the balance in cheaper material includes residual squalene, which oxidises readily. Use 3 to 10 percent in a balm for a lighter finish, or up to 100 percent neat.
Squalene and squalane are one hydrogenation apart
Squalene is a triterpene hydrocarbon, C30H50, built from six isoprene units and carrying six carbon to carbon double bonds. It occurs in olive oil, amaranth, rice bran and wheat germ, and in shark liver oil at high concentration. It is also the most abundant hydrocarbon in human sebum. Squalane is the same skeleton with all six double bonds saturated: twelve hydrogen atoms added, C30H62, molecular weight 422.8 against squalene's 410.7. One letter of difference in the name, one number of difference in the formula.
That difference decides everything about shelf life. Squalene's theoretical iodine value is about 381, and the carbons sitting between two double bonds are the bis-allylic positions where hydrogen abstraction starts a radical chain. Pure squalene oxidises fast enough that it is difficult to sell as a cosmetic raw material without heavy stabilisation, and the peroxides it forms are not inert: squalene monohydroperoxide from skin surface lipid has been studied as a comedogenic and irritant species, which is one of the reasons oxidised sebum behaves differently from fresh sebum. Squalane has an iodine value below 1, usually below 0.5 on a certificate of analysis, and no bis-allylic sites at all. The chain reaction it escapes entirely is the one set out in rancidity and oxidation.
Two consequences follow for a formulator. Squalane needs no antioxidant of its own, so adding tocopherol to a squalane-heavy formula protects the other oils and does nothing for the squalane. And squalane does not protect anything else either. A balm that is 20 percent squalane and 40 percent rosehip oil still has the shelf life of the rosehip, a point worth remembering before crediting squalane with stabilising a blend. The antioxidant needs of a blend are set by its weakest oil, not its average.
The physical data
| Property | Value | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Molecular formula | C30H62 | A branched, fully saturated hydrocarbon. No ester bonds, no hydroxyls, nothing to hydrolyse. |
| Molecular weight | 422.8 | Large for a liquid hydrocarbon, which is why it is oily rather than volatile. |
| Viscosity at 25 C | 25-35 mPa s | Near caprylic/capric triglyceride, well below olive oil at roughly 70 to 80. |
| Density at 20 C | 0.807-0.812 g/mL | Lighter than any triglyceride, which sit near 0.91. Useful if you dose by volume. |
| Refractive index at 20 C | 1.451-1.456 | A quick identity check against a monograph limit. |
| Pour point | below -30 C | Stays fluid in a cold workshop and in a winter delivery van. |
| Iodine value | below 1 | The number that says the double bonds are gone. Ask for it. |
| Peroxide value | below 1 meq/kg | Fresh material should be effectively zero. A rising figure means residual squalene. |
| Assay (purity) | 82-99% | The single most variable number between grades. See below. |
| Flash point | above 200 C | No handling constraint at balm melting temperatures. |
Nothing in that list constrains processing. Squalane can go into the melt phase with the waxes at 70 to 75 C, or into the cool-down, and it will not care either way. There is no thermal degradation to plan around, no polymorphism, and no interaction with the wax crystal network beyond dilution of the oil phase.
Olive, sugarcane and shark liver
The INCI name is Squalane whichever route produced it, and the finished molecule is identical. The routes are not.
| Source | Typical assay | How it is made | What to weigh up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olive | 82-95% | Squalene concentrated from olive oil deodoriser distillate by vacuum distillation, then hydrogenated. | Purity varies most here. Olive oil carries roughly 0.15 to 0.7 percent squalene, so supply is tied to olive harvests and prices move with them. |
| Sugarcane | 92-99% | Sugar fermented by engineered yeast to beta-farnesene, then dimerised and hydrogenated. | The most consistent grade batch to batch, and usually the highest assay. Sometimes rejected by certification schemes that exclude engineered organisms. |
| Shark liver | 96-99% | Liver oil of deep sea sharks, 40 to 80 percent squalene, refined and hydrogenated. | High purity and historically the cheapest. Species used include gulper sharks assessed as threatened. The INCI name does not disclose it. |
| Amaranth, rice bran, wheat germ | 80-95% | Minor plant routes, squalene concentrated from the unsaponifiable fraction. | Small volumes, higher price, occasionally sold as a point of difference rather than a technical advantage. |
If the source matters to your labelling or your customers, it has to come from the supplier in writing, because no ingredient list will carry it. "Vegetable squalane", "olive squalane" and "phytosqualane" are marketing terms rather than INCI, and the last of them appears on packs where the ingredient list simply says Squalane. Get the declaration on the specification sheet and file it with the batch paperwork, along the lines set out in sourcing ingredients. That paperwork is also the only thing a vegan or shark free claim can rest on.
Purity, and why 92 percent is the line worth drawing
Squalane is sold on assay, and the number is the percentage of the material that is actually C30H62. The balance is not filler. In olive-derived grades it is other isoprenoid hydrocarbons, partially hydrogenated intermediates and, critically, unreacted squalene. Below roughly 92 percent assay that residue starts to be enough to behave like a squalene product in miniature: it oxidises, it yellows, and it develops the faint stale odour that people describe as fishy and blame on the shark story even when the material is olive-derived.
A useful purchase specification is assay 92 percent minimum and preferably 95 or higher, iodine value 1 maximum, peroxide value 1 maximum, and a colour figure where the supplier quotes one. An 82 percent grade is not fraudulent and it will still feel like squalane on the skin. It simply has a shorter usable life and less claim to the one property you are paying for. If the drum smells of anything at all, that is information: good squalane is odourless.
Squalane that has developed an odour or a yellow cast is not rescuable by adding tocopherol. The oxidation has already happened in the residual squalene fraction, and antioxidants slow initiation rather than reverse it. Decant a sample, warm it to skin temperature and smell it before it goes anywhere near a batch. The wider symptom set is in rancid balm.
How it feels, and what the spreading value really says
Squalane reads as dry, fast and slightly slippery, closer to a light silicone than to a seed oil, and it leaves less perceptible residue than almost any plant oil at the same dose. The usual explanation, that it spreads further than everything else, does not survive contact with the data sheets.
| Material | Viscosity at 25 C (mPa s) | Spreading (mm2/10 min) | How it reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squalane | 25-35 | 300-500 | Dry, silky, low residue, no tack |
| Caprylic/capric triglyceride | 25-35 | 700-900 | Light, fast, faintly slick at the end |
| Jojoba (wax ester) | 30-50 | 500-999 band | Medium, cushioned, a thin lasting film |
| Mineral oil, low viscosity | 20-30 | 600-900 | Slick, obvious residue |
| Sunflower oil | 50-60 | 500-999 band | Medium, oily finish |
| Castor oil | 600-800 | below 500 | Heavy, glossy, tacky |
Squalane and caprylic/capric triglyceride have the same viscosity in the bottle and squalane covers roughly half the area in the same time. What makes it feel dry is not distance covered but what is left behind. It is a pure hydrocarbon with no ester groups and no hydroxyls, so it has almost no polarity, no hydrogen bonding to the skin surface and no tack, and it mixes readily with the skin's own surface lipids rather than sitting as a separate slick. The framework for reading these numbers is in balm texture science, and the ester comparators are set out in cosmetic esters.
The practical version: squalane is the material to reach for when a balm is too heavy at the end rather than too heavy at the start. If the complaint is that it drags going on, a faster spreading ester does more. If the complaint is the film still sitting there twenty minutes later, squalane is the better substitution, for the reasons in greasy heavy afterfeel.
Use levels from 5 percent to neat
| Level | Effect | Cost sense |
|---|---|---|
| 3-5% | Noticeably shortens the greasy tail of a butter-heavy balm. Most of the perceptible benefit lands here. | Good. The best value point in most formulas. |
| 6-10% | Clear lightening of the whole application, faster break, slightly softer set. Wax may need 1 point more. | Reasonable in a face balm or a premium lip product. |
| 15-30% | Dominates the sensory profile. Fast, dry, expensive, and the cushion of the butters starts to disappear. | Hard to justify unless the dry finish is the product. |
| 50-100% | A single ingredient face oil. Zero rancidity risk, no antioxidant, no odour, no fatty acid activity. | Sells on simplicity, not on formulation. |
In a heavy shea or cocoa balm, 5 percent squalane substituted for 5 percent of the liquid oil is the single cheapest sensory upgrade available, because it works on the part of the experience people complain about. It will also soften the finished stick slightly, since it is thinner than the oil it replaced, so expect to add about half a point of wax to hold hardness. That trade is the one worked through in balm too hard or too soft, and the arithmetic is quicker in the wax ratio calculator.
Before committing to 15 percent, make two 30 g tins that differ only in 5 percent squalane against 5 percent more of your base oil, label them A and B, and have three people use them on opposite hands for a week. The dose response flattens quickly, and most panels cannot pick 15 percent from 5 percent. Method in sensory testing.
Skin's own squalene, and what that licenses you to say
Human sebum is unusual among mammals in containing free squalene, commonly reported at around 10 to 13 percent of surface lipid, alongside triglycerides, wax esters and fatty acids. Squalane is marketed on that similarity, and the similarity is real but narrower than the copy suggests. Skin makes squalene, not squalane. There is no human enzyme that saturates squalene to squalane, so applying squalane is not replacing a lipid the skin made; it is applying a stable analogue of one.
What can honestly be said is that squalane is a hydrocarbon compatible with skin surface lipid, that it is well tolerated, that it does not oxidise on the skin the way surface squalene does, and that it is rated non-comedogenic in the ratings systems that exist, with all the caveats attached to those systems in comedogenic ratings. What cannot be said is that it restores the barrier or replenishes the skin's own lipids. The barrier lipids that matter for that argument are ceramides, cholesterol and free fatty acids in the intercellular lamellae, not sebum hydrocarbons, and that distinction is set out in stratum corneum and barrier lipids. Where a claim starts to sound therapeutic, the boundary is drawn in cosmetic vs drug claims.
One genuine advantage is worth stating plainly: squalane is a hydrocarbon, not a triglyceride, so it supplies none of the fatty acids that Malassezia species metabolise. That makes it one of the few emollients that stays in a formula built for that constraint, as covered in malassezia safe balms.
Where squalane is the wrong choice
It is a weak occlusive. A light hydrocarbon film is not a petrolatum film, and on cracked heels or a wind-burned face the material that measurably suppresses water loss is the heavy one, as the in vitro and TEWL comparisons in petrolatum and mineral oil show. Squalane sits on the emollient side of the three-way split in occlusive, emollient and humectant, and buying it to do an occlusive's job wastes money twice.
It is a poor solvent. With no polarity to speak of, it dissolves less of most polar actives than an ester or a triglyceride does, so a formula relying on it to carry salicylic acid, urea or a polar botanical will fail in the way described in solubility in anhydrous formulas. It also wets pigment poorly, so a tinted product built on squalane develops less colour than the same pigment load dispersed in a castor-led phase.
It contributes nothing nutritionally interesting. If your product story rests on unsaponifiables, vitamin content or a fatty acid profile, squalane has none of those things, and the oils that do are compared in carrier oils compared. And it is expensive: per kilogram it typically sits well above sunflower, high oleic sunflower or caprylic/capric triglyceride, in the band occupied by premium esters and above jojoba oil, with sugarcane grades usually pricing above olive ones. Cost the formula per finished unit before scaling on it.
Buying, storing and declaring it
Ask the supplier for four things: assay, iodine value, peroxide value and the botanical or animal source in writing. Storage is undemanding, since there is no oxidation to slow: a closed container, out of sunlight, at room temperature, and it will still be usable years later. Squalane does not need nitrogen blanketing, refrigeration or an antioxidant, and any of those in a supplier's handling instructions suggests a low assay grade with a squalene fraction to protect.
On a label it appears simply as Squalane in both EU and US nomenclature, positioned by weight in the usual way. Because the name is identical across sources, a shark-free claim needs supplier documentation behind it and should be worded as a sourcing statement rather than a property of the ingredient.
The decision rule
Buy squalane when you have a specific complaint about the last twenty minutes of wear, when the formula has to avoid fatty acids, or when a product must sit on a shelf for two years without an antioxidant story. Buy a 92 percent or better grade, use 5 percent first, and only go higher if a blind comparison actually separates the two. If the complaint is dryness rather than greasiness, if the skin is cracked, or if the budget is tight, the money is better spent on wax, butter and a heavier occlusive, and squalane will not rescue a formula that is wrong in its bones.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between squalene and squalane?
Squalene is C30H50 with six carbon to carbon double bonds and an iodine value around 381. Squalane is the hydrogenated version, C30H62, iodine value below 1. Saturating those double bonds removes every site where oxidation starts, which is why squalane keeps for years while squalene turns quickly. The names differ by one letter and the behaviour differs completely.
Is olive squalane better than sugarcane squalane?
The finished molecule is identical, so neither is better on the skin. Sugarcane grades usually assay higher, typically 92 to 99 percent against 82 to 95 percent for olive, and vary less between batches. Olive grades follow the olive harvest for both price and quality. Choose on assay and on whichever origin your certification scheme or customers accept.
How much squalane should I use in a balm?
Three to five percent by weight is where most of the sensory benefit lands, cutting the greasy tail of a butter-heavy formula. Six to ten percent lightens the whole application. Above fifteen percent it dominates and the cost climbs faster than the improvement. Squalane is thinner than most oils, so expect to add roughly half a point of wax to hold hardness.
Does squalane go rancid?
A high purity grade effectively does not, because it has no double bonds to oxidise and an iodine value below 1. Lower purity grades, below about 92 percent assay, contain residual squalene that does oxidise, which shows as yellowing and a faint stale odour. Squalane also does not protect the other oils in a formula from going off.
Is squalane vegan?
It depends entirely on the source, and the ingredient list cannot tell you. The INCI name is Squalane whether the material came from olives, sugarcane fermentation or deep sea shark liver. Plant and fermentation routes now dominate cosmetic supply, but a vegan claim needs a written source declaration from the supplier on the specification sheet.
Does squalane clog pores?
It is rated non-comedogenic in the rating systems in common use, and being a saturated hydrocarbon it has no fatty acids for Malassezia species to metabolise, which is why it is used in formulas built around that constraint. Those rating systems are rabbit ear and small panel derived and predict individual reactions poorly, so patch test rather than trust the number.
Sources and further reading
- United States Pharmacopeial Convention, USP-NF monograph: Squalane, Rockville MD.
- European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and HealthCare, European Pharmacopoeia monograph: Squalane, Strasbourg.
- Cosmetic Ingredient Review, Safety assessment of squalane and squalene as used in cosmetics, Washington DC.
- European Commission, CosIng cosmetic ingredient database, entry for Squalane.
- International Union for Conservation of Nature, Red List assessment for Centrophorus granulosus (gulper shark).
- Published dermatological literature on squalene peroxidation in human sebum and the biological activity of squalene monohydroperoxide, summarised in reviews of skin surface lipid chemistry.
Reviewed and updated 6 September 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will fix and log it.