Lanolins

1) Lanlolin is the yellow natural substance that is found on sheep's wool and is a mixture of esters of fatty acids. You may hear it referred to as wool oil, wool wax, wool fat, or wool grease. It is actually considered a wax and is found in common items such as chapstick, lotions and many ointments.

2) When embalming, lanolin is found in chemicals called humectants. A humectant is added to an embalming solution to help restore an emaciated body to a more natural appearence. Peer and Epic are just two of the many humectants that can be used in embalming.

3) Most lanolin comes from domestic sheep, but the Marino Sheep produces the most. The harvested wool is continously washed with hot water and a wool scouring detergent and is then sent through a series of rollers to finish the extraction.

4) The term, Lanolin, is important to this class because we will be dealing with emaciated bodies in the embalming room. We need to be informed of the ingredients of the chemicals that we will be using.

5) In all my research, i never found anything telling how lanolin was discovered to be a humectant.