Impurities affect the safety of silicone oil

Like many raw materials, in the various series of silicone oil products, many are not completely 100% pure substances, and there are some impurities in them. One of the notable impurities is D4 (additionally, D4 is the abbreviation of cyclotetradimethyldimethylsiloxane, D5, D6 and so on). D4 is a monomer for the synthesis of these silicone oils, and various types of organosilicon compounds are formed through ring-opening polymerization. However, in the production process of various types of silicone oils, it is difficult to completely react D4 100%, so D4 will remain in some silicone oil products.

What effect does D4 have on the human body? As a kind of cyclic silicone oil, it is highly volatile and easily inhaled by the human body. According to reports, D4 may affect the human reproductive ability, but there is no long-term research data that can support this conclusion 100%. At present, the cosmetics industry has been moving, and Europe is conducting further safety assessments of silicone oil and D4. The major cosmetic companies will require the raw material suppliers to provide the residual amount of D4 in some silicone oil raw materials, and perform standard control on the D4 residue of the raw materials. The content of D4 in some silicone oil products may be as high as 1% or more. If it can be controlled below 0.1% or less, the safety problems will be much less.

Not only D4, D5 also has some security issues. Note that D5 is not a residue, but is a component of a cosmetic raw material used. Due to its strong volatility, D5 will rapidly evaporate during the use of skin care products made of D5, which can create the illusion of easy absorption. This simple and crude "easy absorption" technology makes it widely used in skin care products. But at present, large multinational cosmetics companies are looking for alternative ingredients of D5 to reduce safety concerns. For specific content, you can refer to another article of Zhenmei's blog: Cosmetic ingredients for pregnant women: cyclopentadimethylsiloxane alkyl.

Regarding D5, there are many noisy foreign countries and there are many actions. In China, although major cosmetics companies have to implement global practices, they are not as urgent. Therefore, D5 is common in many big brand products. And after the major silicone oil suppliers put into operation a factory built in China in recent years, they have lowered the price of D5 a lot. This is simply to turn D5 into a good and cheap raw material, so that the formulator can control the cost. Although most of the raw materials for cosmetics have risen in price, this D5 has been overpriced.