Formulating with silicones in beauty and personal care innovations

Featuring Dow silicone ingredients

For beauty and personal care formulators, addressing how silicones function in formulations to make materials work better and how they perform as essential ingredients is crucial for today's beauty formulation landscape.

For decades, silicones have served as a cornerstone ingredient in beauty and personal care applications, providing ideal solutions for hair care, skincare, color cosmetics, and sun care. Highly valued for their abundance, versatility, and star performance in formulations, silicones have a long list of unique and combined benefits to prove they enhance other ingredients and their end products. Simply put, silicones are the ultimate chemistry multitasker.

Despite many documented advantages in the lab and on the production line, silicones also have a mixed reputation, and misinformation surrounds this product family. Brands formulating new product lines or updating existing ones must navigate how to meet consumer demands for more naturally derived options while also leveraging the safe and proven use of silicones, whose product efficacy is backed by science and data.

As the industry shapes the future of beauty, the innovation race is on. Suppliers are responding with both naturally derived and trusted synthetic products to consumer shelves. With the circular economy in mind, product makers seek to fulfill the clean beauty trend with safe and creative advances in formulations, processing, and packaging.

Dow and Univar Solutions Beauty and Personal Care ingredient specialists are on the front lines to bring clarity and insight to formulating with silicones sustainably while balancing advances in today's leading beauty component technologies.

Formulating with silicone ingredients presents a unique set of challenges for beauty brands, primarily concerning consumer perceptions and environmental considerations. Despite these hurdles, the benefits of incorporating silicones into beauty formulations include:

• Enhanced texture
• Increased spreadability
• A silky finish (highly valued in skincare and makeup products)

To overcome challenges, brands must focus on educating consumers about the safety and efficacy of silicones for beauty ingredients and investing in research and development for more environmentally friendly silicone options. This approach addresses consumer and environmental concerns while leveraging the unique properties of silicones to improve product performance and sensory appeal.

At every stage of the product development cycle, the beauty and personal care team at Ingredients + Specialties (I+S) from Univar Solutions plays a pivotal role in supporting brands with silicone-based formulations. Backed by a comprehensive ingredients portfolio and deep expertise in silicone formulations, we offer tailored solutions that help brand unlock the full potential of silicone technologies.

Our specialists understand the complexities of working with silicones, from performance and sustainability to consumer appeal. Through our global Solution Centers, we procide hands-on formulation support, technical guidance, and innovative ingredient recommendations to help brands meet evolving market demands and deliver high-performing, science-backed products.