Dermatologist Debriefs

The Ugly Truth About Silicones in Skincare

• Stefanie Williams

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Are your skincare products secretly suffocating your skin? In this eye-opening debrief, dermatologist Dr Stefanie pulls back the curtain on one of skincare's most ubiquitous yet problematic ingredients: silicones.

You might not realise it, but silicone derivatives lurk in nearly every bottle and jar on your bathroom shelf. These synthetic ingredients—recognisable by suffixes like "-cone," "-methicone," or "-siloxane"—create that silky-smooth texture we've come to associate with luxury skincare. But what if that velvety feeling comes at a serious cost to your skin health?

Dr Stefanie reveals how silicones form an occlusive film that acts like cling film on your skin, trapping oil, bacteria, and dead cells beneath while preventing beneficial ingredients from penetrating. This leads to congested pores, breakouts, and a compromised skin barrier. Even more concerning, silicones slow down natural cell turnover, contributing to dullness and persistent pigmentation issues. And the problems don't stop at your skin—these non-biodegradable compounds persist in waterways for decades, silently damaging ecosystems much like microplastics.

What's particularly frustrating is that silicones offer no actual skincare benefits beyond improving product texture and application. They're essentially cosmetic fillers that create immediate tactile gratification at the expense of long-term skin health. Next time you're shopping for skincare, check those ingredient lists for terms like dimethicone or cyclomethicone. Your skin deserves better than to be wrapped in synthetic polymers. 

Speaker 1:

Dermatologist debriefs. Join no-nonsense dermatologist Dr Stephanie Williams as she debunks myths and shares her professional insights, separating facts from fiction in just a few minutes about silicones in skincare today.

Speaker 2:

Not many people are aware of this, but there are loads of silicone derivatives in our daily skincare. These are ingredients such as dimethicone or cyclomethicone and they are really, really common in skincare products. In fact, you will find it hard to find products without them If you are looking for these in your ingredient label on the box. What you're looking for are ingredients ending with con, so C, o, n, e, or methicon or siloxane, so all of these indicate that they are derived from silicon. Silicon derivatives are also extremely common in hair care, especially conditioners, where they create a film over the hair shaft and fill in gaps between cuticle cells, giving an impression of smoothness and silkiness, but they don't actually repair the hair. It's just a kind of silicone coating hiding the issues below. Anyway, I'm not talking about hair care today, so coming back to skin care. So coming back to skincare. Silicone derivatives are found in all sorts of products, from creams to lotions, where they are used to make the products easier to apply, so they improve their spreadability and they create a silky texture for the product. They also smooth the skin's surface and they do this by creating a thin film on the skin surface and also by filling in gaps between the horn cells of the outer stratum corneum. It's a bit like a polyfiller for a wall wall and one of the highest concentration of silicone derivatives you may find in primers, so products that you apply under foundation to prepare the skin for the following makeup and in primers they provide a smooth base for the makeup by filling in pores and creating a smooth canvas, so to say. But it's exactly these properties ie creating a surface film filling gaps and filling pores that are making silicone derivatives so problematic for our skin, because they're essentially occlusive and they clog pores. That's because these silicone-based ingredients are not absorbed into the skin as such, but they form this occlusive film on the surface, which then locks in moisture, which may be a good thing, yes, but that film can also trap oil and dirt and dead skin cells and bacteria beneath it, and especially for acne prone or oily skin types, this effect can then exacerbate congestion, leading to blackheads and whiteheads and subsequent breakouts. The other thing that silicons do is that they slow down healthy epidermal cell turnover and cell renewal by holding down dead skin cells on the surface longer, which worsens issues like dullness and the shedding off of irregular pigmentation. And as if that's not bad enough, because they're creating a kind of water-resistant seal. Silicons also can reduce the absorption of active ingredients applied afterwards. So not only may they cause problems in themselves, but they also prevent the beneficial ingredients from doing their job properly.

Speaker 2:

Imagine and silicons are notoriously difficult to remove with standard cleansing, leading to a residue buildup on our skin. And if it's in hair care, on our hair, over time it's a bit like cling film suffocating the skin. And that's because silicons like demethicone and cyclomethicone are water resistant, which can make it harder to remove with water alone, but even with many facial cleansers. So they build up over time, making the problem worse and worse. So your skin gets duller and duller and your pores more and more congested. But it doesn't stop at the skin or the hair.

Speaker 2:

Environmentally, silicones are also a concern. So they are non-biodegradable and for that reason they can persist in waterways for decades, accumulating in aquatic life and potentially really disrupting ecosystems. Their chemical structure makes them resistant to breakdown, so they essentially accumulate in the environment, a little bit like microplastics, but in contrast to microplastics, hardly anybody talks about it. And with all these downsides, silicones are essentially chemically inert with regards to our skin. They don't really provide, say, antioxidant or anti-inflammatory benefits to our skin. So they don't really provide, say, antioxidant or anti-inflammatory benefits to our skin. They are just acting as cosmetic fillers that improve the product feel, but they don't really support long-term skin health. They are essentially acting as sensory enhancers rather than true skincare actives. Okay, yes, they may trap some water under their silicony sheet and with that they may increase hydration in the skin, but there are way better ways of doing this.

Speaker 2:

And, of course, for the avoidance of doubt, silicones are used in medical wound care, for example, to create a protective barrier while the skin is healing, and we also use them for scar management, and I don't really have big issues with that, as long as they're used in controlled, short-term contacts and for a reason. But in my professional opinion they shouldn't be used for our daily skincare. So why are there, then, in nearly every single product that you find on the shelf? Personally, I think it's because they make the cosmetic chemist's job easier. They immediately improve the feel of the product in a cheap and easy way.

Speaker 2:

But sometimes we need to take a more difficult way, and I'm sure my cosmetic chemist that I work with did not like it one bit that I asked them to not add any silicone derivatives into my products, and that's probably one of the reasons why it takes such a long time and it takes so many iterations to create one of the Delo Rx products, which are all silicone free. But it's just really important to me, especially as these products are meant to be suitable for congested and breakout prone skin. But even if you don't suffer with that skin type, I wouldn't want silicone derivatives in my skin anyway. So I would strongly recommend to avoid silicone derivatives. Check the ingredient labels, look for things like demethicone or cyclomethicone and maybe choose a different product. So, on that note, I will leave you for today and I will speak to you again soon. Bye, bye, bye.