The Facts About Phenoxyethanol

Cosmetics manufacturers are increasingly responding to customer demand for paraben-free products and removing it from their formulations.

While this is a good thing, many are replacing Parabens with another chemical preservative called Phenoxyethanol.

If you scan ingredient lists of natural and organic beauty products it is surprising how many companies are using it.

However, this synthetic preservative comes with its own set of problems:

• It has been linked to skin irritation and is believed to have damaging effects on the nervous system.
• Like Parabens, it has oestrogenic properties so should be avoided by endometriosis sufferers or those afflicted with adult acne.
• It has a hazard score of 4 on Skin Deep, a brilliant and comprehensive database of cosmetic ingredients.
• Its use in cosmetic preparations is restricted in Japan and will be disallowed under the new European organic beauty standard, COSMOS.

We don’t know for certain how safe or harmful phenoxyethanol is so, at Pai, we take the precautionary approach and leave it out.