Ingredients We Avoid

Here are some of the ingredients we would never use in our products, and why. It's not a complete list, sadly, there are far too many ingredients of concern in modern cosmetics to cover them all here. That's why we insist on natural ingredients that have been used on human skin for centuries, maybe millennia: we believe time itself is the best kind of evidence. An ingredient's real-world safety, tested by generations of actual use, tells us something that a few years of laboratory data on a novel synthetic compound simply can't.

Beyond the everyday irritants covered on our Skin Irritants page, this page covers a different kind of concern, not an immediate reaction, but a longer-term, systemic one. These are genuinely debated areas of science, so where the evidence is still developing, we've said so.

Hormone (Endocrine) Disruptors

Some chemical sunscreen filters, oxybenzone, octinoxate, and avobenzone among them, have been flagged by the FDA and independent researchers for potential hormonal activity. The evidence is still developing rather than settled, but it's part of why we recommend mineral sunscreens instead.

Certain parabens are a clearer case: the EU has already banned several (isopropylparaben, isobutylparaben, phenylparaben, benzylparaben, and pentylparaben) from cosmetics on endocrine-disruption grounds, and restricted propylparaben and butylparaben in products for the nappy area. We avoid the whole family, not just the restricted ones.

Phthalates are another concern, and they're a particularly good example of how little a cosmetics label actually has to tell you. Phthalates are often used as a solvent in synthetic fragrance, but manufacturers aren't required to disclose them, or most of what's in a fragrance blend at all, because "fragrance" or "parfum" is protected as a trade secret. A handful of individually known allergens have to be listed by law above a certain concentration, but beyond that, a single word on a label can be hiding dozens of undisclosed chemicals. Several phthalates are already restricted in cosmetics in various regions. We disclose every ingredient in every product, full stop, which is only possible because we don't use synthetic fragrance blends of this kind in the first place.

Formaldehyde Releasers

Formaldehyde is a recognised human carcinogen, so formaldehyde-releasing preservatives (DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, quaternium-15) are a genuine concern with repeated, long-term topical use, even though each individual exposure is small. These are the same preservatives covered on our Skin Irritants page, that page covers the everyday irritation they can cause; this is about the separate, longer-term carcinogenicity question with formaldehyde itself.

Nano Particles

Nanoparticles are engineered particles smaller than 100 nanometres, used in cosmetics for a few different purposes. Not all of them raise the same concerns.

Why we use non-nano zinc oxide

Zinc oxide particles above 100 nanometres are physically too large to pass through the outer layer of skin, they sit on the surface as a simple physical barrier. Below that size, particles are classified as nano, and while major safety bodies including the EU's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety report that nano zinc oxide also stays on the skin's outer, non-living layer without entering the body in harmful amounts, we prefer the larger, non-nano particle size for our own products. It's a straightforward safety margin, especially relevant given how many of our customers are using this cream on eczema, broken, or otherwise compromised skin, and on babies and young children, where being able to point to a simple physical size barrier, rather than relying on penetration studies, feels like the right level of caution. It's also better for the environment: smaller nanoparticles are more readily taken up by aquatic organisms if washed into waterways, so the larger particle size is the safer choice there too.

Delivery-system nanoparticles, liposomes, nanoemulsions, and similar structures used in serums and anti-ageing products, work by design to carry active ingredients deeper into skin than they'd otherwise reach. There isn't strong direct evidence of harm from typical cosmetic use, but there are genuine concerns among researchers that certain engineered nanomaterials, silver and carbon-based fullerenes among them, could cross cellular barriers into the bloodstream with long-term, repeated exposure. Whether this amounts to meaningful systemic toxicity from ordinary cosmetic use is still heavily debated rather than settled, but it's part of why we don't use engineered nanocarriers of this kind, penetration is the entire point of these delivery systems, which cuts against our general preference for products that work with skin's natural barrier rather than around it.

Nanosilver is used for its antibacterial effect in some deodorants and toothpaste, products applied daily, often more than once a day, over years. That's a very different exposure pattern from the occasional, deliberately dosed use of something like colloidal silver as a short-term antimicrobial. Routine daily use in personal care products raises the same concern as antimicrobial preservatives elsewhere on our site: it doesn't distinguish your skin's beneficial microbiome from anything harmful, and repeated low-level silver exposure carries its own separate environmental toxicity concerns.

Contamination Risks

Modern cosmetic formulas can be remarkably complex, combining dozens of raw ingredients that were never really designed with each other in mind. Some genuinely unwanted compounds only form when specific ingredients interact during manufacturing, or even sit together in the bottle over time, compounds that never appear on any label because they were never deliberately added in the first place. It's part of why we keep our own formulations simple: fewer ingredients interacting means fewer chances for something unintended to form.

Ethoxylated ingredients (recognisable by "PEG," "-eth-," or "-oxynol-" in the name, sodium laureth sulfate, ceteareth, oleth, and PEG compounds among them) are often contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, a byproduct of the manufacturing process itself. It's classified as a probable human carcinogen. We avoid ethoxylated ingredients altogether, so this isn't a concern with our products.

Petrochemical derivatives like mineral oil, petrolatum, and paraffin carry a similar risk, they can be contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) if not fully refined. Beyond the contamination question, they're also non-biodegradable, sit on the skin as an occlusive, clogging layer, and are inert, offering no nourishing benefit to skin the way a natural oil does.

Nitrosamines form when nitrosating agents, the preservative bronopol is a common culprit, or nitrite contamination more generally, react with amine-based ingredients: DEA, TEA, MEA, and their derivatives like cocamide DEA and lauramide DEA, commonly used to thicken and foam products such as shampoo, bubble bath, and shaving foam. Several are classified as probable human carcinogens. We avoid DEA, TEA, MEA and their derivatives entirely, along with nitrosating preservatives like bronopol, so there's nothing in our formulations for this reaction to occur between.