Paraffin vs. Vaseline — What's the Difference?

A waxy white or colorless solid hydrocarbon mixture used to make candles, wax paper, lubricants, and sealing materials. Also called paraffin wax.

Vaseline is an American brand of petroleum jelly-based products owned by transnational company Unilever. Products include plain petroleum jelly and a selection of skin creams, soaps, lotions, cleansers, and deodorants.

(Chemistry) A member of the alkane series.

A type of petroleum jelly used as an ointment and lubricant.

Chiefly British Kerosene.

Cover or smear with Vaseline

To saturate, impregnate, or coat with paraffin.

Petroleum jelly.

(UK) A petroleum-based thin and colourless fuel oil.

Any particular kind of petroleum jelly or of any similar lubricant.

(chemistry) Any member of the alkane hydrocarbons.

(informal) Vaseline glass or the colouring used in making it.

Paraffin wax.

To lubricate with vaseline.

To impregnate or treat with paraffin.

A yellowish translucent substance, almost odorless and tasteless, obtained as a residue in the purification of crude petroleum, and consisting essentially of a mixture of several of the higher members of the paraffin series. It is used as an unguent, and for various purposes in the arts. See the Note under Petrolatum.

To embed in paraffin wax.

A trademarked brand of petroleum jelly

A white waxy substance, resembling spermaceti, tasteless and odorless, and obtained from coal tar, wood tar, petroleum, etc., by distillation. It is used in candles, as a sealing agent (such as in canning of preserves), as a waterproofing agent, as an illuminant and as a lubricant. It is very inert, not being acted upon by most of the strong chemical reagents. It was formerly regarded as a definite compound, but is now known to be a complex mixture of several higher hydrocarbons of the methane or marsh-gas series; hence, by extension, any substance, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, of the same chemical series; thus gasoline, coal gas and kerosene consist largely of paraffins.

From crude petroleum; used for candles and for preservative or waterproof coatings

A non-aromatic saturated hydrocarbon with the general formula CnH(2n+2)

British usage