Phenoxyethanol

Phenoxyethanol is a preservative. It appears in a very large share of creams, lotions, cleansers and baby products, usually near the end of the ingredient list, because it is used at fractions of a percent.

It became common for a specific reason: it is what a great many formulators moved to when Parabens became commercially unusable. That history is worth knowing, because it means phenoxyethanol arrived by public feeling rather than by a safety finding, and a substitute chosen that way deserves checking rather than trust.

It checks out better than most.

What the review evidence says

The European Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has assessed it as safe for all consumers, and the phrase used includes children of all ages, at a maximum concentration of 1 percent.

Adverse systemic effects have been seen in animal toxicology, which is the fact usually quoted against it. The relevant part is the dose: those effects appeared at exposures around two hundred times higher than what a person receives from using cosmetics containing it. A safety margin of that size is what a regulator is looking for, and quoting the effect without the margin is the same move that made parabens frightening.

Despite appearing in an enormous number of products, it is a rare sensitiser, and the safety review describes it as one of the most well tolerated preservatives in cosmetic use.

Where the caution comes from

There is a real one, and it concerns very young infants rather than the general population.

Some national authorities have been more conservative than the European assessment about leave-on products for the youngest children, particularly nappy area products. That is a precautionary position rather than a finding of harm, and it applies to a narrow product category and age band.

If you are choosing products for a baby, that is worth knowing and it is worth asking your health visitor or paediatrician rather than resolving from a label. The wider approach to reading labels for a small child is on the page for parents.

The thing worth avoiding is neither

A water-based product with no preservative at all is a microbiological problem. Bacteria and mould grow in creams, and a jar dipped into with fingers for six months is an ideal environment.

So “preservative-free” on a product that contains water is the claim to be suspicious of, which is the reverse of how the marketing is usually read. Preservatives are the least glamorous ingredients on a label and among the most necessary, and the question worth asking is which one, not whether.