Hydrotrope
The ingredient that stops a concentrated liquid separating in the bottle. It cleans nothing and without it there is no product.
In detail
A hydrotrope is a small, highly water-soluble molecule added to keep a concentrated formulation as one clear liquid. Surfactants, solvents, fragrance and water do not necessarily stay mixed at high concentration or at low temperature, and a product that separates on a cold shelf or gels in the bottle is a failed product regardless of how well its actives work. Hydrotropes solve that by sitting between the components and holding them in solution. They are why a concentrated liquid detergent can be poured at all, and why the same formulation at the same strength would be a cloudy sludge without them. They belong to the group of ingredients this catalogue would once have had no way to describe: present in meaningful amounts, doing nothing to the soil, and essential to the thing existing.
Why
- Hydrotrope is explained by Solubility and polarity
Sources for this page
Sources
Safer Chemical Ingredients List — functional-use classes
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Safer Choice · Government or regulator
Relied on for: That processing aids and additives are among the functional-use classes in which cleaning-product ingredients are assessed. (cleaninghq's interpretation of what it says)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The functional-use class navigation of the Safer Chemical Ingredients List. Supports a narrower statement — our claim was reduced. Corroborates the ingredient-class family from a second regulator, adds four classes the EU labelling annex does not name, and supplies the principle that substitution happens within a functional class.
Handbook of Detergents (Surfactant Science Series)
CRC Press / Taylor & Francis · Reference work
Relied on for: That hydrotropes are added to concentrated liquid formulations to maintain a single homogeneous phase and prevent separation or gelling. (background and mechanism only)
Verification: the work exists and is described correctly. Nobody has yet read the specific passage.
Last reviewed by a person on .