The Short Answer: It's Not Just Parabens Anymore

Parabens get most of the attention in clean beauty conversations, and plenty of brands now lead with "paraben-free" on the front label. But a formula can skip parabens entirely and still be built on three other ingredient families that clean beauty formulators avoid just as deliberately: silicones, PEG compounds, and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives. None of them get the same front-label treatment, which means most shoppers never learn to look for them.

Here's what these ingredients actually are, why they ended up in so many conventional formulas, and what a farm-grown label looks like when a brand builds around them instead of with them.

Silicones (Dimethicone and Its Relatives)

Dimethicone, cyclopentasiloxane, and anything ending in "-cone" or "-siloxane" are silicones — synthetic polymers added to lotions, primers, and conditioners for one reason: they create an instant silky, smooth slip across the skin or hair. That texture is real and immediate, which is exactly why silicones became a default ingredient in mass-market formulas.

The tradeoff shows up over time rather than on first touch. Silicones sit on top of skin as a film rather than absorbing into it, which is part of why heavily siliconized products can leave a coated, slightly suffocated feeling by the end of the day rather than a clean afterfeel. They're also persistent in the environment — most silicones used in cosmetics don't biodegrade, so they move through wastewater largely unchanged. Clean beauty formulas skip them in favor of plant oils and butters that absorb rather than sit on the surface.

PEG Compounds (Polyethylene Glycol)

PEG, followed by a number — PEG-40, PEG-100, and so on — shows up as an emulsifier, thickener, or solvent in everything from cleansers to creams. PEGs themselves are made by reacting ethylene oxide with water, and that manufacturing process is the real issue: it can leave behind trace byproducts, which is why consumer-safety organizations have flagged PEG compounds for inconsistent manufacturing purity rather than for the PEG molecule itself.

There's a second, more practical reason clean beauty skips them. PEGs are known for helping other ingredients penetrate skin more easily — useful if everything else in the formula is something you want absorbed, and a liability if the formula also contains synthetic preservatives or fragrance you'd rather not carry in deeper. Natural emulsifiers built from plant fats do the same thickening and blending job without that penetration-enhancing side effect.

Formaldehyde-Releasing Preservatives

DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea, and quaternium-15 are preservatives that work by slowly releasing small amounts of formaldehyde into a formula over its shelf life, which keeps mold and bacteria from growing in the product itself. DMDM hydantoin alone is the single most common formaldehyde-releasing preservative in shampoos and conditioners on store shelves.

These preservatives are legal and FDA-regulated in the US, but several are restricted outright or require specific warning labels in the EU. That gap between US and EU regulation is exactly why reading past "preservative" on an ingredient list matters: a product can be fully compliant and still contain something a more cautious formulator chooses to avoid.

What a Farm-Grown Label Looks Like Instead

None of this means a shelf-stable product has to rely on silicones, PEGs, or formaldehyde releasers. It means choosing a different, slower set of ingredients to do the same jobs. Our Botanical Renew Body Butter uses virgin shea nut butter and kokum butter for the texture and slip a silicone would otherwise provide, with vitamin E and botanical extracts in place of a synthetic preservative system. The Complete Daily Face Moisturizer builds its blend, feel, and absorption from more than twenty plant oils — jojoba, rosehip, moringa — rather than a petroleum-derived film former.

Even our bar soaps and castile liquid soaps are saponified from organic coconut, olive, and sunflower oils, which means the cleansing agent itself is plant-derived rather than a synthetic surfactant system that needs a separate emulsifier to hold together. Many of these ingredients are grown on JD's family farm in Vero Beach, Florida, which is part of why "farm-to-bottle" shows up so often on our labels — it's a literal description of where the raw material comes from, not a marketing phrase layered on top of a conventional formula.

Reading the Label: Where These Hide

A few quick things to scan for on any ingredient list, clean beauty or not:

• Any word ending in "-cone," "-conol," or "-siloxane" — these are silicones, regardless of how far down the list they appear
• "PEG-" followed by a number — the number indicates molecular weight, not purity or safety, so it doesn't tell you anything about manufacturing quality
• "DMDM hydantoin," "imidazolidinyl urea," "diazolidinyl urea," or "quaternium-15" — all four release formaldehyde as part of how they work
• Ingredients positioned near the end of a long list — don't assume "small amount" means "skip it"; some of these are active at well under 1% concentration

The Bottom Line

"Paraben-free" is a start, not a finish line. Silicones, PEG compounds, and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives all do real jobs in a formula — texture, shelf stability, blending oil and water — and clean beauty's answer isn't to leave those jobs undone. It's to do them with plant oils, butters, and saponified soap instead of petroleum-derived and formaldehyde-releasing substitutes.

To see what that looks like in practice, explore our facial care collection or the full body care collection — every formula built from ingredients you can actually trace back to a farm.