Is silicone really safe?


What is the effect of D4 on human body? As a kind of annular silicone oil, it is highly volatile and easy to be inhaled by human body. It is reported that D4 may affect human reproductive capacity, but there is no long-term research data to support this conclusion. At present, the cosmetics industry has been in action, and Europe is carrying out further safety assessment on silicone oil and D4. Major cosmetics companies will require raw material suppliers to provide D4 residue in some silicone oil raw materials, and control D4 residue standard in raw materials. The content of D4 in some silicone oil products may be as high as 1%. If it can be controlled below 0.1% or even less, the safety problems will be much less.






Not only D4, but D5 also has some safety problems. Note that D5 is not a residue, but a cosmetic ingredient used. Due to its strong volatility, D5 will volatilize rapidly in the use stage of skin care products made of D5, which can create the illusion of easy absorption. This simple and crude "easy absorption" technology makes it widely used in skin care products. However, at present, large multinational cosmetics companies are looking for alternative ingredients of D5 to reduce safety concerns. For specific content, please refer to another article of Zhenmei blog: the cosmetics ingredients for pregnant women to use carefully: cyclopentadimethylsiloxane.






With regard to D5, there are a lot of quarrels and actions abroad. In China, the major brand cosmetics companies need to implement the global approach, but they are not so urgent. Therefore, D5 is common in many big brand products. In recent years, the main silicon oil suppliers have built factories in China and put them into production, which has lowered the price of D5 a lot. This is simply to turn D5 into a good and cheap raw material, which is convenient for the formulators to control the cost. Although the price of cosmetics raw materials has increased, the D5 has been reduced.






Summary of silicone oil safety:






Generally speaking, silicone oil itself is safe and harmless to human body. However, the residual D4 in the product may have potential safety problems. D5 will be replaced in 10 years due to safety concerns.






Which products contain D4 and D5?


D4 is residue, impurity, not on the composition list. However, there may be trace residues in skin care products, shampoo, hair conditioner and cosmetics, and the amount of D4 residues in different silicone oil (silicone) is different. However, it is not obvious whether trace residues will cause human health problems. But the less the total, the better, just like dioxane in sles.


For D5, do you see that there is "cyclopentadimethylsiloxane" on the composition list? If so, it is it. See if they are all in the front row of the ingredient list? Yes, this product is often added more by the formulators.


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