Answer: No.
Aquaphor is a company that manufactures all kinds of skincare products. These products are usually sold over the counter in pharmacies and are quite popular. Though it’s common for one to use skin care products regularly as a vegan, it may have come to your attention that many skincare brands are non-vegan.
After all, milk and honey are common ingredients in these kinds of products, and you should know those two ingredients are non-vegan.
Moreover, with how many components a typical skin care product has, you’d wonder if at least one of the ingredients of Aquaphor products is non-vegan.
So, is Aquaphor vegan or not?
As with any other brand, Aquaphor has several products. Usually, some of them will be completely vegan, but we have yet to find a single product from Aquaphor that doesn’t contain a non-vegan ingredient. Most of them include at least one, so no, Aquaphor is not vegan.
Of course, this can be a shocker if you used to like or still like Aquaphor.
In that regard, this guide will go over why Aquaphor is not vegan and what better way to do that than by looking at its base ingredients.
For starters, let’s take a look at the different product varieties of Aquaphor.
Table of Contents
Different Product Varieties Of Aquaphor
On the official AquaphorUS.com website, you’ll find that the brand categorizes its products into four varieties. Below is a brief description of each of the category:
- Baby Care: This category consists of eleven items, all of which are made to help relieve common problems with a baby’s or child’s delicate skin.
- Body Care: This variety has ten items and is just like Baby Care, except it contains harsher chemicals and acids that would otherwise be unsuitable for children. It has the same purpose as the last category, preventing irritation and other skin problems.
- Lip Care: The Lip Care variety consists of six items that are made to help the user relieve cracked or chapped lips and provide it long-lasting moisture.
- First Aid: This product variety has a total of five items, all of which aim to boost the natural healing process of the body and protect against irritants.
While that’s how Aquaphor categorizes their products, for this guide, we’ll categorize their products according to their ingredients. Those with roughly the same ingredients will belong to the same category. Here’s how it turned out.
- Healing Ointments
- Baby Wash And Shampoo
- Diaper Rash Cream/Paste
- Body Spray
- Healing Balm Stick
- Lip Repair/Protectant
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the ingredients of our first category.
Aquaphor Product: Healing Ointments
Aquaphor’s healing ointments are made to help boost the natural healing process of the skin. It provides nutrients and minerals known for improving their healing properties. Here’s a look at the base ingredients of healing ointments:
| INGREDIENT | VEGAN |
|---|---|
| Bisabolol | YES |
| Ceresin | YES |
| Glycerin | MAYBE |
| Lanolin Alcohol | NO |
| Mineral Oil | YES |
| Panthenol | MAYBE |
| Petrolatum | YES |
Are they vegan? NO
Aquaphor healing ointments have two potentially non-vegan ingredients and one that is definitely non-vegan, which is unfortunate since Aquaphor is best known for its healing ointments. So, basically, their flagship product is non-vegan.
Aquaphor Product: Baby Wash And Shampoo
As the name suggests, Aquaphor’s Baby Wash and Shampoo products are made specifically for a child’s delicate skin and hair. Though they are initially two different product categories, they have roughly the same ingredients, including:
| INGREDIENT | VEGAN |
|---|---|
| Bisabolol | YES |
| Citric Acid | YES |
| Cocamidopropyl Betaine | YES |
| Decyl Glucoside | YES |
| Panthenol | MAYBE |
| PEG-200 Hydrogenated Glyceryl Palmate | YES |
| Polyquaternium-10 | YES |
| Sea Salt | YES |
| Sodium Benzoate | YES |
| Sodium Chloride | YES |
| Sodium Myreth Sulfate | YES |
| Water | YES |
Are they vegan? MAYBE
The Baby Wash and Shampoo category is the most vegan product variety of Aquaphor. That might have to do with the fact that vegan ingredients are often less harsh than non-vegan ingredients. Since baby skin care products must cater to the delicate skin of kids, it makes sense why it’s almost vegan, if not for panthenol.
Aquaphor Product: Diaper Rash Cream/Paste
Diaper Rash Cream/Paste is mainly for the skin around the buttocks of children, which tends to have different skincare needs than the skin in other parts of the body. That explains why it has different ingredients from the baby wash.
| INGREDIENT | VEGAN |
|---|---|
| Ceresin | YES |
| Glycerin | MAYBE |
| Magnesium Stearate | MAYBE |
| Panthenol | MAYBE |
| Polyglyceryl-4 Diisostearate/Polyhydroxystearate/Sebacate | YES |
| Water | YES |
| Zinc Oxide | YES |
Are they vegan? MAYBE
As if to prove our point, the Diaper Rash Cream/Paste category is the second most vegan product variety of Aquaphor, perhaps because it’s a baby product.
Apart from glycerin, magnesium stearate, and panthenol, which seem to be the root of most of our vegan concerns, there’s nothing wrong with its ingredients.
Aquaphor Product: Body Spray
Aquaphor also has Body Spray products which is different from its other products in that it comes as a spray rather than in ointment or gel form. That’s why it also has a different set of ingredients from the Baby Wash product category that arguably does the same thing. These ingredients include the following:
| INGREDIENT | VEGAN |
|---|---|
| Bisabolol | YES |
| Butane | YES |
| Ceresin | YES |
| Glycerin | MAYBE |
| Lanolin Alcohol | NO |
| Mineral Oil | YES |
| Panthenol | MAYBE |
| Petrolatum | YES |
Are they vegan? NO
Aquaphor Product: Healing Balm Stick
The Healing Balm Stick does roughly the same thing as the Healing Ointments products, except it comes as a balm stick, as the name implies.
| INGREDIENT | VEGAN |
|---|---|
| Beeswax | NO |
| Bisabolol | YES |
| Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter | YES |
| Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride | MAYBE |
| Glycerin | MAYBE |
| Microcrystalline Wax | YES |
| Panthenol | MAYBE |
| Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil | YES |
| Tocopherol | MAYBE |
Are they vegan? NO
Aquaphor Product: Lip Repair/Protectant
Lip Repair/Protectant products do exactly what their name suggests, they repair the lips from being chapped and protect them from external irritants or lack of moisture.
| INGREDIENT | VEGAN |
|---|---|
| Ascorbyl Palmitate | YES |
| Beeswax | NO |
| Bis-Diglyceryl Polyacyladipate-2 | MAYBE |
| Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter | YES |
| Dimethicone | YES |
| Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Wax | YES |
| Hydrogenated Castor Oil | YES |
| Octyldodecanol | YES |
| Panthenol | MAYBE |
| Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil | YES |
| Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil | YES |
| Tocopherol | MAYBE |
| Tocopheryl Acetate | YES |
| Water | YES |
Are they vegan? NO
SUMMARY: Non-Vegan Aquaphor Ingredients
The previous sections only mentioned whether an ingredient is vegan or non-vegan, which might not be enough to show or prove that Aquaphor is indeed non-vegan.
With that said, here’s a look at the non-vegan ingredients of Aquaphor, why they’re vegan, where they come from, and what they’re used for in skincare products:
- Lanolin Alcohol comes from lanolin, a grease that comes from the sebaceous glands of sheep. It’s a common ingredient in skincare products as it’s an effective emollient, a compound that softens or soothes the skin. It also prevents water loss in the skin, making it easier to generate moisture.
- Beeswax is a common ingredient in skin care products and is responsible for protecting the skin from external irritants. It also softens the skin and enhances its elasticity. Unfortunately, it comes from bees, specifically, the combs of their nests made by bees using beeswax.
Those are the ingredients that are most certainly not vegan. However, some ingredients may or may not be vegan, depending on their type. Those are labeled PROBABLY VEGAN in the sections above. Below is a list of those ingredients:
- Bis-Diglyceryl Polyacyladipate-2 is a synthetic ingredient that is a texture enhancer in skincare products. It also has emollient properties, meaning it helps softens and soothe the skin. The ingredient can come from either animal fats or vegetable oils, so it’s not certain whether it’s vegan.
- Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride is often used to prolong the shelf life or longevity of skincare products. It’s also one of the ingredients responsible for the shine on the skin when the product is applied. It’s made by combining coconut oil and glycerin, and glycerin happens to be a potentially non-vegan ingredient. For that reason, caprylic is also potentially non-vegan.
- Glycerin serves as a humectant in skincare products. Humectants help moisturize, hydrate, and soften the skin. It can come from vegan sources like beer, vinegar, and wine, but it also has a non-vegan source like honey.
- Magnesium Stearate is generally used in skincare products as a processing ingredient. It improves the binding or adhesion of the final product to enhance its texture. Just like glycerin, it has both plant-based sources and animal sources. Plant-based sources include palm oil, vegetable oil, and coconut oil. Animal sources include pork, butter, chicken, and beef.
- Panthenol is commonly used as a moisturizing agent in skincare products. It can come from various sources, including non-vegan sources like egg yolk, fish, and meat, and vegan sources, like almonds and nuts. Alas, Aquaphor doesn’t state where the panthenol they use on their products comes from, so we cannot say for sure whether it’s vegan or not.
- Tocopherol is similar to panthenol in that it’s often used as a moisturizing agent in skincare products. It has both plant-based and animal sources. Plant-based sources include sunflower oil, soybean, and almond oil. Animal sources include animal fats. The good news is there are only minimal amounts of tocopherol in fats, so there’s a relatively low chance Aquaphor specifically uses the non-vegan type of tocopherol since it would be less efficient.
Parting Words
Surprisingly enough, Aquaphor, despite not being vegan, is much more vegan than any other skincare brand. Of course, that would only be true if they use plant-based sources of the ingredients mentioned above. And other than lanolin and beeswax, there’s really no other completely non-vegan ingredient from Aquaphor.
It’s quite unfortunate that those two non-vegan ingredients happen to also be one of the key ingredients of many of their products. Otherwise, it would’ve been vegan.