Volcanic Ash in cosmetics: what it is and what it does

What does Volcanic Ash do in a product?

In a cosmetic product, Volcanic Ash scrubs or polishes, absorbs water or oil and adds volume to a powder. The EU’s CosIng database lists these jobs for it: abrasive, absorbent and bulking.

What is Volcanic Ash?

Volcanic Ash is an amorphous, inorganic silicate obtained from lava deposits.

CosIng reference

60148

Which products contain Volcanic Ash?

Open Beauty Facts finds Volcanic Ash in the ingredient lists of 6 of the 22,021 products it has a list for, most often oral care and toothpastes.

• Oral care1
• Toothpastes1

Products with it, by country of sale: United States 3 · Spain 1 · Germany 1 · United Kingdom 1.

Counted on 13 October 2026 from Open Beauty Facts, which volunteers fill from real packs: it shows where Volcanic Ash turns up, not how much of the market it is.

Sources

The job, the description and the EU annex entry are CosIng’s; the fragrance allergens are the EU Annex III names Bravoora’s label checker reads; the product counts are Open Beauty Facts’.

1. European Commission: CosIng cosmetic ingredient database (functions, description, EU annex entry)
2. Open Beauty Facts: product database, 77,506 products, read 13 October 2026, ODbL

Contains information from Open Beauty Facts, which is made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL). Read the licence · Download this dictionary’s data · How we check