Ethyl Alcohol

[Guest guest]

Hi, I’ve been listening in on the group for a few weeks, and may have some

useful information for the group concerning denatured ethyl alcohol.

In my country (New Zealand) we can buy methylated spirits, i.e. ethanol,

ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, containing a few percent of methanol as a

denaturant (i.e. to make it too poisonous to drink). It is dyed purple and

contains pyridine, a bad smelling / foul tasting component, added to let you

know it is denatured, otherwise you would not know how poisonous it was. It’

s cheap and is OK for cleaning windows etc, but is obviously no good for

cosmetic purposes. However, a little known fact is that in some paint and

hardware shops you can buy Shellac Reducer, which is colourless and

odourless denatured alcohol / methylated spirits, which is good for many

uses where you need the alcohol but not the smell or colour of regular

methylated spirits.

Obviously this is now quite a dangerous product, because without the colour

you have no way of knowing that it is much more poisonous than pure ethyl

alcohol.

When used as a co-solvent in cosmetic preparations where it is applied to

the skin in small quantities the amount of methanol present is very small

and presents no problems. However, I would not use it in aftershaves or

perfumes, where a lot of alcohol is applied to the skin. For this

application you would need pure alcohol (grain alcohol, ethanol). This is

much more expensive because of the government tax / excise / duty levied on

drinkable alcohol.

Best Regards.

Bob Foulkes