Silicone is a controversial ingredient that you will find in a lot of everyday products. Make-up, creams, shampoos, oils, … the list goes on. Even if there is no evidence that it can be bad for our health, its ecological impact is huge. In fact, it can take decades to hundreds of years to degrade. What’s more, we rarely recycle it. Therefore, Ecogarantie prohibits it in its cosmetics with an ecolabel.
What is silicone
First, a little course of science. Silicone is in fact different from silicon. Unlike silicon, it is actually an artificial substance that we cannot find in a pure state in nature. Even if it is made from silicon, it undergoes a strict chemical process which makes it a synthetic polymer. And guess what, some silicones belong to the category of microplastics! Yes, those little particles of plastic you’ve already heard about and which have a disastrous impact on the planet.
Silicone is part of some cosmetics products’s composition for a number of reasons. For example, they give a smooth texture to products like shampoo or foundations. They can also help give your hair a shiny aspect. Scientists consider it as harmless for human health and it is well tolerated by our skin. This is why we can find it in most of our usual conventional products. But why are they not part of the composition of cosmetics with an ecolabel?
Why there is no silicone in cosmetics with an ecolabel
If you’ve read our article about microplastics, you know that they are polluting ingredients that threaten the marine life. Here again, we don’t know yet if they are safe for our health or not. However, we do believe that silicones are bad for non-human organisms. Moreover, as they are a very stable type of component, they degrade really slowly. It could in fact take decades, or even hundreds of year before it completely degrades. This is why Ecogarantie forbids its use in cosmetics with an ecolabel.
