ISOPROPYL MYRISTATE

📋 Quick facts

Description: ISOPROPYL MYRISTATE — emollient, penetration enhancer.

All Functions: emollient, penetration enhancer

Quick Facts:

• Category: emollient
• Comedogenic Rating: 5/5

Proven Benefits At A Glance:

• Isopropyl myristate (IPM) is a long-chain hydrophobic ester—a type of oil-like ingredient
• IPM can be used as a vehicle (delivery system) to help move ingredients through skin layers
• IPM behaves differently depending on what other ingredients are mixed with it
• Research has mostly studied IPM in drug delivery rather than cosmetic skincare
• IPM alone is not an effective model for predicting how things move through actual human skin

⚗️ Chemical Overview

Isopropyl tetradecanoate is a fatty acid ester. Isopropyl myristate is a moisturizer with polar characteristics used in cosmetics and topical medical preparations to ameliorate the skin absorption. Isopropyl myristate has been largely studied and impulsed as a skin penetration enhancer. At the moment the primary usage for which isopropyl myristate is formally indicated is as the active ingredient in a non-prescription pediculicide rinse. isopropyl myristate has been reported in Solanum tuberosum, Siraitia grosvenorii, and other organisms with data available.

Source(s): ChEBI, DrugBank, LOTUS – the natural products occurrence database, via PubChem

📊 Comedogenicity

5/5

🛡️ Safety rating

Safety tier is a starting heuristic from regulatory status and comedogenic rating, not a dermatological verdict — see our Terms for the full disclaimer. Research confidence reflects how many real cited studies back this ingredient, not the strength of their findings.

🌍 Regulatory Status

💧 Skin Type Compatibility

Derived from this ingredient’s irritancy potential and comedogenicity rating against the needs of each skin type — e.g. oily and acne-prone skin are marked down for pore-clogging ingredients, sensitive skin for irritants. A starting heuristic, not a dermatological verdict.

⚠️ Don’t Combine With

📚 Research & Evidence

🔬 The Science

Isopropyl myristate is a type of chemical compound classified as a long-chain hydrophobic ester, meaning it’s oil-like and doesn’t mix well with water (Int J Pharm, 2005). When used in skincare formulations, IPM functions as a vehicle or delivery system rather than an active ingredient itself. Here’s what the research actually shows:

#1: How IPM moves through skin depends on what you mix it with. When IPM is combined with ethanol (alcohol), it can help lipophilic (fat-loving) drugs partition more effectively into the outer layer of skin called the stratum corneum, compared to IPM alone (Int J Pharm, 2001). Similarly, when IPM is paired with another ingredient called glyceryl monocaprylate, the combination can disrupt the organized lipid structure of the stratum corneum, potentially allowing better penetration (Biol Pharm Bull, 2010).

#2: IPM can help deliver ingredients to different skin depths depending on its formulation. In studies with paclitaxel, IPM alone helped concentrate the ingredient in the epidermis (outer skin layer), while a 1:1 blend of ethanol and IPM pushed it deeper into the dermis (the layer below) (Farmaco, 2005). #3: IPM-based gels showed enhanced transdermal delivery in one animal study—a triptolide-loaded IPM gel delivered the ingredient 2.92 times better through rat skin compared to a commercially available ointment (Yao Xue Xue Bao, 2005). However, this was tested in animals, not humans. Importantly, the research is limited: these studies primarily focused on pharmaceutical drug delivery, not cosmetic skincare ingredients.

Additionally, one source explicitly notes that the water-to-IPM system is a poor model for predicting how substances actually behave in human skin (Int J Pharm, 2005), which suggests IPM’s real-world effectiveness in cosmetic formulations may differ from what lab studies suggest.

📄 Related Research

Matched by search — not necessarily verified support for every statement above.

• Abraham MH et al. (2005). Characterisation of the water-isopropyl myristate system. Int J Pharm.
• Furuishi T et al. (2010). Synergistic effect of isopropyl myristate and glyceryl monocaprylate on the skin permeation of pentazocine. Biol Pharm Bull.
• Alberti I et al. (2001). Effect of ethanol and isopropyl myristate on the availability of topical terbinafine in human stratum corneum, in vivo. Int J Pharm.
• Panchagnula R et al. (2005). Feasibility studies of dermal delivery of paclitaxel with binary combinations of ethanol and isopropyl myristate: role of solubility, partitioning and lipid bilayer perturbation. Farmaco.
• Lin LH et al. (2005). [Isopropyl myristate molecular gels and drug-loaded transdermal capability]. Yao Xue Xue Bao.

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