Skin Care Ingredient Profile: Dimethicone
What is it?
Dimethicones are unmodified silicones. Wellthat rather sounds pretty harmless. But what does that mean to you and I?
According to one manufacturer, unmodified silicones stay on or near the surface of the skin, producing an occlusive effect. Basically, manufacturers claim that this alone makes dimethicone safe because the molecules are too large to physically enter your body beyond the upper living cells.
There are also claims that Dimethicone associates with the upper layer of drying skin, and these molecules seem to display an aversion to both the water and proteins inside cells. This sounds very plausible, and probably an interesting premise to draw a conclusion that dimethicone is probably pretty harmless.
What is it supposed to do for my skin?
Well, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly of the skin care industry.
Silicone emollients demonstrate occlusive properties. Companies claim that this wonderful benefit traps moisture to the upper layers of skin, thus increasing a moisturizers effectiveness.
Ok, sure, I’ll bite that one– What exactly is an occlusive property?I happen to know, having been a skin and hair care professional in years past to put myself through school where I studied a few years of chemistry and biology.
In reality, dimethicones form a layer on the skin which retains anything and everything beneath it, including impurities, sebum, and bacteria, as well as water. Logically, this would be the reason you want wash thoroughly BEFORE you apply anything with such a property
Essentially if you use a product with this silicone based product, you have just lathered a layer of plastic on your skin. Now if you are into body wraps, I guess that’s exciting. I am just not certain about this whole trapping moisture next to my skin. It’s a great thought, but something about lathering plastic wrap on my face day after day is somewhat disconcerting.
This “barrier” as skin care manufacturers like to call it, sloughs off as the skin renews itself, requiring frequent application to maintain results.
I am not sure what results we are to expect with an occlusive emollient…but do people really believe that dimethicones are going to help your stave off old age, wrinkles, and lines? Anyways…occlusive properties also means clogged pores – leading to pimples, bumps, and blackheads. At least that’s been my experience. If you are an adult around the age of 30 and started to use anti-aging products… and have experienced a sudden onset of acne… chances are, you may be enjoying the full scale benefit of dimethicone… and a potential side effect.
Dimethicones are also used in numerous hair products. It is used to coat the surface of hair and lubricate it, improving combing and detangling, and thus reducing hair loss and breakage. Dimethicone is frequently used in smoothing serums and anti-frizz serums.
Whenever I used a dimethicone based product on my hair, (like a conditioner) Imust wash my body thoroughly AFTER thoroughly rinsing my hair or risk enjoying occlusive properties on sensitive skin and waking up the next day covered in lovely pimples.
Skin doesn’t need chemicals to look healthy it needs natural care and feeding, along with gentle cleansing.Feeding your skin on the inside AND on the outside is the sure way to beautiful skin. In other words, there really isn’t a truly solid reason to use dimethicone in your beauty regimen, even if you have dry skin.
Potential Side Effects?
Studies prove that prolonged exposure of the skin to sweat, impurities, and bacteria, by occlusion, causes skin irritation. In other words using dimethicone may lead to:
• Pores becoming clogged, and/or potential allergic reactions.
If you have sensitive skin, acne-prone skin or allergic skin occlusive emollients probably will aggravate your situation.
Are there Safety Concerns?
According to several research websites, the following are known tumor promoters and also tend to accumulate in the liver and lymph nodes.
• Dimethicone
• Dimethicone Copolyol
• Cyclomethicone
Hmmm interesting. And the manufacturers tell us that silicone molecules cannot possible be absorbed by our bodies
There is evidence which indicates silicone is toxic to the human body. Perhaps you could tell me how a chemical can’t be absorbed by our bodies, but still be considered a toxic substance if ingested or injected?
According to www.ewg.org, there is Insufficient toxicity data to know if dimethicone is safe for use in cosmetics the data used to determine safety levels come from a related chemical. Wow, that is reassuring. But this tends to happen frequently. Like testing your brother’s IQ and granting you automatic genius status because his IQ went through the roof.
Side note: silicones are non-biodegradable, leading to negative environmental impacts, both during the manufacturing process and the disposal process. This in itself for me, both personally and professionally, is another major reason NOT to use this ingredient.
On basis that the little has been found on dimethicone and diemthicone copolyol, they have come to the conclusion that these products do not show ANY negative impact on our health, according to one independent study.
However, these methicones and their side effects (especially long-use effects) actually have not been studied closely. If you happen to know otherwise, I would love to see both the studies and the results of those studies.
With the little information derived on the chemical group of “methicones” (i.e. “phenyl trimethicone”, “dimethicone”, “dimethiconol”, dimethicone copolyol” and “cyclomethicone”) they seem to be very heavily used in the cosmetics industry. Methicones are found in many beauty products and their impacts with regard to health should be investigated more closely.
Still don’t believe silicone based substances are toxic? http://www.medical-library.net/sites/framer.html?/sites/_silicone_implant_disease.html
One of the more interesting controversies is whether or not silicone is harmful. If we are going to look at skin care ingredients, we need to consider potential health issues surrounding the ingredient. Regardless what you believe the fact is, your skin DOES draw from the ingredients you put on.
So we have potentially established the following:
• toxicity level hasn’t been actually determined or established for this exact chemical
• there aren’t a great number of studies publicized concerning the safety of methicone based products
• it is a non-biodegradable chemical
• Its occlusive properties can potentially HARM your skin, even if it eventually sloughs off.
• Although claims that unmodified silicone molecules cannot enter your body, we see cases of silicone toxicity and allergic-like reactions to silicone based products
What products contain this ingredient?
Currently, the EWG cites 1669 products to contain dimethicone.
Should I avoid it?
Dimethicones have been known to cause allergic reactions. Silicone itself has been proven to be toxic in the right levels. Considering dimethicone’s occlusive properties – If you have sensitive or reactive skin, I recommend that you consider eliminating this silicone derived chemical from your skin care regimen.
