Lanolin?

Seems like a whole lot of different products are infused with lanolin, and they want to tell you right on the label so it must be important right?  Maybe you're one step ahead of me, but what it is it?  They say it's refined wool wax or wool grease, secreted from the sebaceous glands of wool bearing animals.  These are the glands that hang out just below the skin and funnel into hair follicles to coat and protect hairs.. or in a sheep's case, to waterproof their coats.  This is just one of the reasons pomade can be a bitch to wash out.. seems like sometimes it just gets harder and more cement like in the shower.

Most of the lanolin we use comes from domestic sheep by kneading raw wool in water or using a chemical process to get it out, then of course it's treated heavily, refined, bleached and deodorized.  It's made up of sterols, fatty acids and some other things, which constitutes it as a 'natural moisturizer with powerful protective properties'  So we're using fatty acids from sheep's sebaceous glands hahaa, pretty crazy.  But don't worry for all the animal lovers, they say sheep outnumber humans big time.. about 45 million sheep for every 4 million people so there shouldn't be any shortages any time soon.  I think it's funny they named this Garfield character Lanolin.