Waxes from animals

Waxes from animals can be obtained from land and marine animals.

1. Land animal waxes (Woolwax)

2. Marine animal waxes

The wax with a commercial importance from the land-animal group is the woolwax. It is separated from the hair-grease of the sheep, goat, llama and dromedary and it is often called “wool fat”, but since it contains no glycerides (of which fats are composed), the name is not actually appropriate. The crude soft wax obtained from the hair of the sheep is called “Wool grease”, or more specifically “degras”. In wool washing, the free fatty acids and lower esters are saponified to soaps, and the portion that is un-saponified is known as wool fat. The highly refined form of the wool wax is referred to as Hydrous Lanolin, because water has been blended with the wool fat after alkali and centrifugal treatment. If the water is entirely removed, then it is called Anhydrous Lanolin.

There are two types of marine animal waxes: solid marine waxes and liquid marine waxes. For the first group, spermaceti is the most important; and in the liquid type we find sperm oil and closely allied oils, any marine oil free, or nearly free, from glycerides. Liquid marine waxes usually contain considerable amounts of esters of unsaturated alcohols and acids, whereas the solid types contain only esters of saturated components.