Is Vanillyl Butyl Ether natural?

This ingredient is made commercially by more than one route, and ISO 16128 scores the feedstock actually used. Without a supplier certificate of origin the value cannot be claimed.

Vanillin is reduced to vanillyl alcohol and joined to n-butanol (from petrochemical propylene) by acid-catalysed etherification. Most vanillin is made from petrochemical guaiacol; vanillin from wood lignin, ferulic acid or eugenol makes the vanillyl part natural origin.

Vanillyl butyl ether is made in two steps. Vanillin is first reduced to vanillyl alcohol (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzyl alcohol), usually with hydrogen over a metal catalyst.

The vanillyl alcohol is then heated with n-butanol and an acid catalyst. The acid protonates the benzylic OH so that it leaves as water, giving a benzylic cation that the ring's para-hydroxy group stabilises; the oxygen of butanol attacks that cation and loses its proton to form the ether. Water is the only by-product, and the ether is purified by washing and vacuum distillation.

A warming agent: it gently triggers the skin's heat receptors, so it is used in lip plumpers, warming massage products and some hair-care products. It is made from vanillin and butanol, and its natural content depends on whether the vanillin comes from wood lignin or from petrochemicals.