What it is
The EU's CosIng database describes Coco-Glucoside as the product of condensing coconut alcohol with glucose, and lists three functions: cleansing, foaming and cleansing surfactant.1 Foaming, in the EU's definition, means trapping many small bubbles of air in a small volume of liquid by changing its surface tension.2
It is the coconut-based member of the alkyl glucosides, the non-ionic surfactants made by reacting glucose with fatty alcohols, which a 2026 review describes as having a low potential for irritation.3 Shampoos pair non-ionic surfactants with ionic ones as a secondary cleanser.4 Its best-known relative, Decyl Glucoside, is made the same way from decyl alcohol5, and its page explains how the family cleans.
Where you find it
Mostly in products that are rinsed off. A 2026 survey of 650 products from the largest online retailer in the Netherlands found coco-glucoside in 101 of 300 rinse-off products (33.7%), far ahead of any other glucoside: half of the baby shower gels, 46% of baby shampoos, 52% of shower gels and 20% of shampoos. Only 5 of the 350 leave-on products contained it.6
It also turns up under gentle-sounding claims. A 2024 study of best-selling shampoos and body cleansers marketed as hypoallergenic or for sensitive skin on a large online marketplace found alkyl glucosides in 56.7% of the hypoallergenic shampoos, and coco-glucoside was the glucoside found most often.7 Natural, organic and hypoallergenic explains what that kind of claim does and does not promise.
Allergy: a family that reacts together
Contact allergy to coco-glucoside and lauryl glucoside was first reported in Belgium in 2003.6 Coco-glucoside is not among the three alkyl glucosides commercially available for patch testing, which are decyl, lauryl and cetearyl glucoside6, and the authors of the 2024 study argued that it should be added to the baseline series patients are routinely tested with.7
Reactions within the family overlap. In two UK clinics, 29 of 2,796 patients (1.04%) tested with a series of five alkyl glucosides, coco-glucoside among them, reacted to at least one, and 23 of the 29 reacted to more than one.8 Dutch dermatologists report that about half of patients allergic to decyl glucoside also react to lauryl glucoside and coco-glucoside.6 A 2026 review lists cross-reactions, mixed alkyl chain compositions and shared impurities among the possible reasons.9 The Decyl Glucoside page covers the larger patch-test studies.
What official sources say
Coco-Glucoside has no entry in the annexes of the EU cosmetics regulation, so no ingredient-specific EU limit or warning applies to it.10 Like every ingredient, it still has to appear in the product's list of ingredients (Article 19).10
How it appears on a label
As Coco-Glucoside, with a hyphen, its name in the EU glossary.11 Not every name ending in glucoside is a cleanser: Ascorbyl Glucoside, for one, is vitamin C bound to glucose and listed as an antioxidant.12
Read it together with the cleanser above it: shampoo surfactant types explains how a non-ionic co-cleanser pairs with the main one, what sulfate-free means where glucosides fit among sulfate replacements, and the shampoo ingredient checker shows the role of every name on a list.