Hydroxyethylcellulose
Hydroxyethylcellulose appears in 14 indexed US food products. No FDA SAFFA status or CSPI rating is attached in this snapshot, so this page reports prevalence rather than a safety verdict.
What the data can answer
Hydroxyethylcellulose appears in 14 catalogued products, but this snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to it. This page therefore cannot answer whether the ingredient is safe from those sources. It can show how often it occurs, where it tends to sit on labels, and which kinds of products contain it.
- 14
- catalogued products
- #11,996
- usage rank of 247,206
- 5
- named brands represented
- 60%
- average depth down ingredient lists
Catalog prevalence comes from Open Food Facts ingredient lists. FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine labels are shown only when the source record contains them.
High-volume listing for Hydroxyethylcellulose - usage rank #11,996
- Usage rank
- #11,996
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 643 others that also appear in exactly 14 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 60%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 14 products listing it (mean slot 23.6). Hydroxyethylcellulose usually falls in the lower half of the list; this position does not measure its amount because source formatting, compound ingredients and labeling exceptions vary.
Computed from parsed product ingredient lists (Open Food Facts). The ranking covers 247,206 ingredients that appear at least once. Neither usage rank nor label depth is a safety clearance.
How to use this page
Use prevalence before concern
Only 14.3% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Hydroxyethylcellulose spans 5 named brands and is led by the Hair-conditioner group. Start with AlphaRet Overnight Cream; Calm Conditioner Lavender; Comfort Conditioner Sweet Cream when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 98.6/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.
5 named brands carry this ingredient
The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 14 of 14 classified products, leaving a meaningful remainder elsewhere. This breadth is why the page reports label depth, category, and product examples separately. Those dimensions help locate comparable products; combining them into a stronger safety claim would hide the variation the catalog actually contains.
Next check: compare label position across two brands before treating prevalence as equivalent exposure.
How do the sampled products compare?
Each point is one of the 14 sampled products listed below: its overall safety score against how many separately flagged ingredients its label carries. Bubble size is the number of ingredient rows the label actually resolved to.
Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Hydroxyethylcellulose
Products Containing Hydroxyethylcellulose
A sample of 14 high-volume listings among the 14 indexed products containing Hydroxyethylcellulose:
Hydroxyethylcellulose vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Top-decile company for Hydroxyethylcellulose: 14 listings averaging 98.6/100.
Similar mean product score
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
Next steps from the Hydroxyethylcellulose page
Use the 14-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Hydroxyethylcellulose before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
- Compare another ingredient’s source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Hydroxyethylcellulose — common follow-ups
Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on Hydroxyethylcellulose? ▼
This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Hydroxyethylcellulose, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#11,996 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.
Which product shelves show up most often with Hydroxyethylcellulose? ▼
Hydroxyethylcellulose ranks in the top decile by product count (#11,996 of 247,206), appearing in 14 indexed products led by Hair-conditioner. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Hydroxyethylcellulose so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Hydroxyethylcellulose appears in 14 products (#11,996 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Hydroxyethylcellulose). Safety ratings: CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence: Open Food Facts via PlainFoodSafe (September 2026). Figures are computed from those sources, no editor-typed counts. Methodology · State regulations.