Is polyethylene glycol (PEG) carcinogenic?

It is sometimes mentioned that products containing polyethylene glycol can be carcinogenic. The answer to this is no.

As with the substance SLES, during production, 1,4-dioxane is released. 1,4-dioxane is carcinogenic. This is something that has been known and therefore taken into account for a very long time.

Over the years, excellent ways have been found to filter out 1,4-dioxane and this is mandatory. For that, products containing PEG are therefore not carcinogenic.

Thus, it is not the PEG that poses a hazard but the potentially formed 1,4-dioxane that causes hazards.  Since all products, as legally defined according to legislation EC 1223/2017, have to be approved by a toxicologist, I can tell you that the possible residual value of 1,4-dioxane, is below legal specifications.  (Otherwise, the "external" toxicologist would never have approved it either).

In our case, PEGs are good solvents of certain ingredients that do not pick at the eyes, which is why we use them.  

With regard to Dimethicone, silicones are very controversial these days. Yet here too we should note that this mainly refers back to Cyclo-pentasiloxane and cyclo-tetrasiloxane of which the former is increasingly shunned and the latter has not been used for a long time.

Silicones are often very stable - they hardly react with other chemicals and are resistant to the influence of water, oxygen, light and micro-organisms. This makes them very suitable as protective materials.  They are non-toxic, allowing them to be used within medicine and cosmetics. In many ways they also resemble oils and resins, but at the same time they are not sticky and can therefore be used as an alternative.

The use of cyclo-pentasiloxane lies not in its toxicity to humans but rather in its poor degradation in the environment. The volatility makes these particles float around for a long time and are particularly difficult to break down, making them harmful to nature.

For this reason, there is an increasing switch to dimethicone and cyclomethicone, which do not pose any danger to human health or the environment.

In our case, this is used because it forms a light film around the hairs so that moisture is better retained in the hairs, making them resistant to heat. Combability improves and the hair looks less dry.