Sodium Chloride

What it is

Sodium chloride is common table salt. It is also one of the small water-loving compounds that make up the natural moisturising factor in the outer layer of skin, and it is a routine ingredient in skin formulations. In this catalogue it usually sits in the last third of the ingredient list, which is where the small quantities live. Exactly what it is doing in any one of them - adjusting texture, or the salt balance of the water phase - is not something the sources here record.

How it shows up on a label

What it does well

• Salt is part of the skin's own moisture system

  Laboratory work on isolated stratum corneum treats sodium chloride as one of the natural moisturising factor's own components. In that work, mixtures of salt and glucose dissolved at a lower humidity than either compound alone and increased the mobility of the tissue's lipids and proteins more than either alone did. It is a model system and a mixture, so it does not show what a little salt in a mask does on a face.

  Limited evidence

Worth knowing

• No cosmetic safety review of its own

  The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's published table of conclusions has no row for sodium chloride, so there is no expert-panel conclusion to quote. The honest reading of a salt near the end of an ingredient list is a formulation ingredient rather than an active one.

Where the EU stands

Sources (2)

Every link goes to the original: a journal, a PubMed record or an EU document.

1. [1]
   Beyond additivity: a mixture of glucose and NaCl can influence skin hydration more than the individual compounds

   Journal of Colloid and Interface Science · 2022 · doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.166

   Glucose and sodium chloride are both present in the natural moisturising factor and in skin formulations. In isolated stratum corneum, their mixtures dissolved at lower relative humidity than either compound alone and increased the mobility of the tissue's lipids and proteins more than the individual compounds. A model system, and a finding about the mixture. Checked 6 September 2026.

2. [2]
   Quick Reference Table: ingredients found safe in the present practices of use and concentration

   Cosmetic Ingredient Review · 2024

   The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's table of every ingredient its Expert Panel has concluded on, updated 8 October 2024, contains no entry for sodium chloride: there is no CIR safety assessment of it as a cosmetic ingredient. Checked 6 September 2026.