What is lanolin?
Lanolin, a wax secreted by wool-bearing animals, coats woolly fibers and aids in their water shedding abilities. This wool wax helps protect the animals’ skin from the climate and helps with their hygiene. Most lanolin is harvested from domestic sheep, and is used in personal care products, commercial industrial products, and medical ointments.
What is lanolin used for?
This wool fat (a misnomer as it is not a true fat) is used extensively in personal care, health care and commercial products. Derivatives of lanolin can also be found in a wide range of lubricants, including rust-prevention as well as shoe polish, artificial tears, shaving cream, and baby skin treatment. Industrial uses include marine uses like corrosion prevention, water-repellent, and barnacle adherence prevention.
In medical uses, lanolin has been shown to be superior to petrolatum with treating cuts and scrapes. Additionally, it works to reduce dryness, scaling, itchiness, and pain in volunteers with terribly dry skin in a clinical study.
Lanolin is commonly used in lip balms (eg. Carmex), moustache wax, leather treatments, and brass instrument lubricants. As lanolin can be an allergen it can lead to irritation in some people when they use products containing this waxy material.