Aquaphor Healing Ointment has one active ingredient on the FDA regulated Drug Facts panel: Petrolatum 41 Percent, filed as a Skin Protectant under 21 CFR 347. The six inactives Beiersdorf prints below it, Mineral Oil, Ceresin, Lanolin Alcohol, Panthenol, Glycerin and Bisabolol, carry everything the ad calls healing. Vaseline is 100% petrolatum. One jar in Brooklyn costs 2.57 times the other.
On a Tuesday in November, a 14 ounce jar of Aquaphor Healing Ointment sat on a drugstore shelf in Brooklyn beside a smaller jar of Vaseline Original. Aquaphor was 17.49 US dollars. Vaseline was 6.79. The Aquaphor front panel promised to "moisturize, nourish and protect the skin to enhance healing," with Panthenol and Glycerin named on the box. Vaseline said "Skin Protectant." I bought the Aquaphor, pulled up its FDA filing on the way home, and the pack and the Drug Facts panel weren't quite telling the same story.
What is the active ingredient in Aquaphor Healing Ointment?
Aquaphor's own US product page for the 14 ounce jar lists one Active Ingredient: Petrolatum (41%). That matches the current FDA filing. On November 4, 2026 I read version 20 of the Drug Facts label on DailyMed, filed by Beiersdorf Inc and published December 16, 2025. The Active Ingredient block holds one line, Petrolatum 41 percent, with its Purpose next to it: Skin protectant. Everything else, Mineral Oil, Ceresin, Lanolin Alcohol, Panthenol, Glycerin and Bisabolol, sits under Inactive Ingredients. Six names. No percentages. In the order Beiersdorf prints them.
Under the FDA skin protectant monograph, 21 CFR 347.10, Petrolatum is permitted as an active at 30 to 100%. Allantoin ranges from 0.5 to 2%. Glycerin, when it's the active, ranges from 20 to 45%. Aquaphor's 41% petrolatum sits 11 points above the monograph floor. Its sibling in the same aisle, Vaseline Petroleum Jelly, is 100% petrolatum. One is at the top of the range. The other sits near the bottom, carrying six extras.
What is in Aquaphor that is not in Vaseline?
Six inactives, in the order Beiersdorf prints them on the FDA filing. Mineral Oil and Ceresin are an occlusive and a wax that soften the texture so it spreads without the tug of plain petroleum jelly. Lanolin Alcohol is a sheep wool derived emollient and a well documented contact allergen. Panthenol is pro vitamin B5, a humectant that becomes pantothenic acid on skin and holds water. Glycerin pulls water into the top layer. Bisabolol, which the label spells Levomenol, is a soothing compound best known from chamomile. None of them is listed with a percentage. FDA's cosmetic labeling rule 21 CFR 701.3 doesn't make Beiersdorf disclose inactive levels, and Beiersdorf doesn't.
Who owns Aquaphor?
Aquaphor is a US brand name. Its labeler on every Drug Facts panel is Beiersdorf Inc, the Wilton, Connecticut subsidiary of Beiersdorf AG, the Hamburg based public company that also owns Nivea, Eucerin, US Coppertone, La Prairie, Hansaplast and Chantecaille. Beiersdorf's own shareholder page, read November 4, 2026, puts the Herz family's holding company, Maxingvest GmbH and Co. KGaA, at 54.4%, free float at 36.4%, and Beiersdorf AG's own treasury shares at 9.2%. Maxingvest also owns 100% of Tchibo, the German coffee house chain, and was renamed from Tchibo Holding in 2007 when the family consolidated its coffee and skincare empire under one roof. The holding is co led by Michael Herz, Christof Queisser (named Managing Director in April 2025 per Maxingvest's own December 2024 announcement) and Frédéric Pflanz. The practical read: a shopper buying Aquaphor in a US drugstore is buying a product whose ultimate shareholder also holds Tchibo coffee, Nivea and Eucerin.
The eighth most Googled "who owns" completion for Aquaphor this week is "Eucerin owns Aquaphor." That's a common shopper misread. Eucerin and Aquaphor are siblings, not parent and child. Both report up through Beiersdorf AG to the same Hamburg holding.
Does Aquaphor really heal, or is it just occluding?
Dermatologists treat the two products as near substitutes with different manners. In a September 29, 2024 US Dermatology Partners piece, Dr. Kavya Desai, a board certified dermatologist in Fairfax, Virginia, said the humectants in Aquaphor "have the added benefit of helping to hydrate skin that has experienced transepidermal water loss," while noting that Vaseline "is sometimes preferred in wound care."
Translate that to the shelf. The petrolatum is doing almost all of the barrier work, the occlusion that keeps a wound moist enough for keratinocytes to migrate across it. The glycerin and panthenol add a modest humectant pull. The bisabolol is soothing in the way a touch of chamomile is soothing. The ad's word "healing" leans on all of it. FDA's word "Skin Protectant" is doing the regulatory work. The mineral oil question itself is covered in this older post on cosmetic grade mineral oil: the grade used in a US OTC product is a different material than crude.
Should people with a lanolin allergy avoid Aquaphor?
Lanolin Alcohol is one of the six inactives. Contact allergy to lanolin is uncommon but real. The rub: it concentrates on broken skin and chronic eczema, which is exactly where people reach for Aquaphor first. If you've got a diagnosed lanolin allergy, Vaseline Original is the safer pick in the same aisle. If you don't, the "preservative and fragrance free" line on Aquaphor's box is accurate: no parabens, no phenoxyethanol, no listed fragrance. Beiersdorf does not disclose the lanolin alcohol percentage on the US panel, and FDA's cosmetic labeling rule does not require it to. A small number. Worth knowing before you buy the 14 oz jar if your dermatologist has flagged lanolin for you.
What does the US public record show for Aquaphor?
Empty is also a finding. According to FDA's openFDA Enforcement Report (last updated October 28, 2026), Beiersdorf Inc has 8 federal recalls on its history, all 2021 Coppertone sunscreen spray lots pulled for benzene contamination or current good manufacturing practice deviations, all Terminated by April 13, 2023 per the same database. None involve Aquaphor. The one openFDA entry that surfaces for the word "Aquaphor" is a 2020 Class II recall of a single compounded Hydrocortisone in Aquaphor tube pulled by a Florida pharmacy, Terminated December 13, 2022, with the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy listed as the recalling firm, not Beiersdorf. FDA's warning letter database shows none directed at Beiersdorf Inc for Aquaphor. FDA's CAERS cosmetics adverse event file lists 6 lifetime Aquaphor reports, which per FDA's own disclaimer cannot be used to estimate risk, only to say a small number of consumers filed a report naming the brand.
So is Aquaphor worth the markup over Vaseline?
Depends on what you're buying it for. For a covered wound where the point is occlusion, pure petrolatum is doing the job, and the extras barely move the needle. For chapped lips, cracked heels, winter hands or a skin barrier run thin by tretinoin, the six extras make Aquaphor feel less draggy on application and give it a slightly softer finish. Both products sit in the small category of barrier products with clear mechanisms. The honest difference is texture, cost per ounce and whether you want a lanolin trace on your skin. The marketing word "healing" is doing more than the petrolatum under it needs it to do.
So here's the open question for the shelf. If the active ingredient is the same molecule in both jars, and only the inactives differ, how much is the softer texture worth? On the Brooklyn shelf the gap was 2.57 times, Aquaphor over Vaseline, per ounce. Write back if you've found an answer that works for you.
Photograph the Aquaphor jar and Skinventry reads the ingredient panel back to you with the Active and Inactive lines separated, names the labeler Beiersdorf Inc, the ultimate parent Beiersdorf AG in Hamburg, and what the public record shows for that company. Every line carries its source, and there's no score at the end.
Three things we read while writing this
- DailyMed version 20 of the Aquaphor Healing Ointment Drug Facts label, filed by Beiersdorf Inc, published December 16, 2025, read November 4, 2026.
- The FDA skin protectant monograph at 21 CFR 347.10, which allows Petrolatum as an active at 30 to 100 percent.
- Beiersdorf AG's shareholder structure page, read November 4, 2026, which puts Maxingvest at 54.4 percent, free float at 36.4 and the company's own treasury at 9.2.
Nearby on Skinventry: how the Aquaphor Lip Protectant with SPF stacks up against a reformulated competitor, and the teardown of Olaplex, another US beauty brand that now reports to a German parent in Hamburg.
