Ingredient Desk

Tag: dimethicone

  • Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion: The Oat Is Ingredient #7

    Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion takes its name from
    the oat — “Aveeno” comes from Avena, the oat genus
    — but on the fragrance-free body formula, Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour
    is the seventh of ten ingredients. Six names come before it, including petrolatum
    at position four. The ingredient the FDA registers as this product’s active
    skin protectant is not oat at all: it is dimethicone, boxed in the Drug Facts at
    1.2%. The oat is an inactive.

    Aveeno is one of the moisturizers US dermatologists reach for most, and its
    whole identity is oats: the brand is literally named after the oat, and the
    bottle is sold as Daily Moisturizing Lotion “with Soothing Oat.” That
    is the front of the bottle. The back — the ingredient list, ordered roughly
    by weight, and the Drug Facts box, which is a legal document — tells a more
    precise story, and it is one you can check in about a minute.

    We read the whole label. Here is where everything actually sits.

    Where does the oat actually land on the label?

    Here is the full inactive list, quoted verbatim from the product page at
    Ulta.com,
    read on 4 September 2026 (HTTP 200), and cross-checked against the FDA-submitted
    label on
    DailyMed
    (NIH; last updated July 2025). Both agree, and a third US retail listing matches:

    Water, Glycerin, Distearyldimonium Chloride, Petrolatum, Isopropyl Palmitate, Cetyl Alcohol, Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour, Dimethicone, Benzyl Alcohol, Sodium Chloride.

    Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour is the seventh name on that list of ten. It
    appears after water, glycerin, distearyldimonium chloride, petrolatum, isopropyl
    palmitate and cetyl alcohol. On a label ordered by weight, a brand’s
    namesake ingredient in seventh place sits well below the top of the formula
    — below the occlusive, the emollients and the emulsifier that give the
    lotion its body and slip.

    One detail matters before we go further. This is the specific SKU we read: the
    fragrance-free Daily Moisturizing body lotion (NDC 69968-0454). Aveeno’s
    other products — the Skin Relief version, the face lotion, the scented
    variants — have different lists and the oat sits at different positions, so
    this analysis is about this bottle only.

    Marketed hero
    Oat (“with Soothing Oat”)
    Position on label
    Seventh of ten (Avena Sativa Oat Kernel Flour)
    Registered active
    Dimethicone 1.2% — skin protectant, per the Drug Facts box
    Source of list
    Ulta.com, read 4 Sep 2026; DailyMed FDA-submitted label
    Nib the round pencil-sketch creature holds a magnifying glass up to a pump bottle whose front reads soothing oat, squinting at the small ingredient type on the back.
    The front says soothing oat. Nib flips the bottle over to find out where the oat actually lands.

    So what is the FDA-registered active in Aveeno?

    This is the part the front of the bottle does not lead with. Aveeno Daily
    Moisturizing Lotion is not filed as a cosmetic. It is a Human OTC
    Drug    , and every OTC drug has a Drug Facts box that names one or more
    active ingredients. On this product, the
    FDA-submitted
    label     lists exactly one active:

    Active ingredient: Dimethicone 1.2% — Purpose: Skin protectant

    Dimethicone is a silicone. It sits at position eight in the inactive-order
    reading of the combined list, but its role is defined separately in the Drug
    Facts: it is the ingredient Aveeno registered with the agency as doing the
    skin-protecting. The FDA even indexes the product by that active — the drug
    registration name is “Aveeno Daily Moisturizing dimethicone lotion.”
    Not oat lotion. The oat, by contrast, appears nowhere in the Drug Facts box. It
    is one of the inactives.

    And it is not the only workhorse ahead of the oat.
    Petrolatum sits at position four — three places above the
    oat. Petrolatum is one of the most effective occlusives in cosmetic chemistry and
    is itself an FDA-recognized skin protectant under the OTC monograph
    (21 CFR 347.10). It
    is the ingredient forming the barrier film that slows water loss. So the pair of
    ingredients most responsible for this being a “moisturizing” lotion
    — the registered protectant and the occlusive — are dimethicone and
    petrolatum. The oat is downstream of both.

    Position Ingredient What it does
    3 Distearyldimonium Chloride Quaternary conditioning agent; gives the lotion its slip
    4 Petrolatum Occlusive; an FDA-recognized skin protectant in its own right
    7 Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour The namesake ingredient; an inactive, seventh of ten
    8 Dimethicone (1.2%) The registered active skin protectant, per the Drug Facts box

    None of this makes it a poor lotion. Dimethicone and petrolatum are both
    genuinely effective, well-tolerated ingredients, and a barrier lotion built on
    them is a reasonable thing to buy. The point is narrower and fair: it is a
    dimethicone-and-petrolatum protectant with oat as an inactive, sold as an oat
    lotion. If you bought it for the oat, you mostly bought the silicone and the
    petrolatum.

    Nib runs a pencil down a short numbered list and stops at a jar of petrolatum sitting at position four, drawn larger than the small oat grain three places below it.
    Petrolatum at four, an occlusive doing real barrier work, three places above the namesake oat.

    Is the oat here the same as the “colloidal oatmeal” in the studies?

    This is where it gets genuinely interesting, and where we have to be honest
    about what the label does and does not tell us.

    The FDA does recognize colloidal oatmeal as an OTC skin-protectant
    active in its own right — it has its own entry in the same monograph that
    covers petrolatum
    (21 CFR 347.10). A
    brand that wanted to could file oat as the active and put it in the Drug Facts
    box. Aveeno did not. On this product they filed dimethicone and left the oat as
    an inactive, listed as “Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour” rather than
    as colloidal oatmeal. Oat kernel flour is finely milled oat; whether it meets the
    monograph’s colloidal-dispersal definition is not something we can read off
    the label, so we are not going to assert it either way.

    The clinical evidence for oat in a lotion is real but specific about dose. An
    Aveeno-affiliated study in Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational
    Dermatology     describes benefits from
    “a daily
    moisturizing lotion containing 1% colloidal oat”     (2021;14:73–82
    — and note the study is company-affiliated, so weigh it accordingly). An
    independent randomized trial reached similar conclusions using a
    1% colloidal oat
    formulation (J Drugs Dermatol. 2020;19(5):524–531), though that was
    a dedicated eczema cream, not this daily lotion.

    Here is the honest gap: Aveeno does not disclose the oat concentration
    in this product,     and no brand is required to. What we can say is what the
    label shows — the oat is seventh of ten, below several ingredients present
    in larger amounts — and what the research shows — the studied benefit
    sits at 1% colloidal oat. We cannot line those two numbers up, because one of them
    is not published. We are not going to guess it for you. But “the namesake
    ingredient is an inactive at position seven, and the evidence base is built at 1%,
    which the brand does not confirm it hits” is a fair place to leave it.

    Nib peers at a labelled drug-facts box that reads Dimethicone one point two percent, skin protectant, and glances back at the oat grain marked number seven.
    The active the FDA registers is dimethicone, boxed and dosed. The oat is an inactive at seven.

    What is distearyldimonium chloride doing at position three?

    Three names above the oat, at position three, is distearyldimonium chloride.
    It is a quaternary ammonium compound — the same family of ingredients used
    as conditioning agents in hair care. In a body lotion it is what gives the
    formula its slip and its soft, conditioned skin-feel. It is common, it is legal,
    and it is well ahead of the oat by weight.

    We are flagging it only because it is a slightly unusual thing to find that
    high in a skin lotion, and because it explains part of the pleasant feel that the
    marketing tends to credit to the oat. We are not going to make a safety claim
    about it: the finished-product concentration here is not disclosed, and the
    consumer-advocacy ratings that circulate about this ingredient are based on the
    pure chemical, not on a lotion. That is a different question from the one this
    piece answers, which is simply: where does it sit? It sits at three, above the
    oat.

    Nib taps the pencil against an open regulation labelled colloidal oatmeal, then at the oat grain on the label with a small question mark drawn above it.
    The FDA recognises colloidal oatmeal as an active. Aveeno filed dimethicone instead and left the oat inactive.

    How do you read any moisturizer’s label this way yourself?

    The method is not special to Aveeno, and you do not need a chemistry
    background. Find the actual ingredient list — and, on anything sold as a
    moisturizing or protectant lotion, find the Drug Facts box too, because
    that names the active. Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight down
    to about the 1% mark, so where a name sits is a rough proxy for how much is in
    the bottle. Then find the ingredient the front of the bottle is selling and see
    how far down it is. If the hero is in the top few names, marketing and formula
    agree. If it is seventh, and the thing in the Drug Facts box is something else
    entirely, they do not.

    If what you actually want is a moisturizer where the ingredient on the front
    is the one doing the work — and where the list is short enough to read in a
    breath — that is a different kind of product. We wrote about that trade-off
    for dry skin specifically on our own product page,
    tallow for dry
    skin     — that is ours (Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind
    Evil Goods), so read it knowing that. It is the honest next question after this
    one, and it is aimed at exactly the dry-skin reader Aveeno is aimed at.

    FAQ

    Where is the oat in Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion?
    Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour is the seventh of ten ingredients on the
    fragrance-free body lotion, below water, glycerin, distearyldimonium chloride,
    petrolatum, isopropyl palmitate and cetyl alcohol.

    What is the active ingredient in Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion?
    Dimethicone at 1.2%, listed as a skin protectant in the Drug Facts box on the
    FDA-submitted label. The oat is an inactive, not the registered active.

    Is Aveeno’s oat the same as the colloidal oatmeal in the studies?
    The label lists “oat kernel flour,” not colloidal oatmeal, and the
    product is filed with dimethicone as the active rather than oat. Whether the flour
    meets the FDA’s colloidal-oatmeal definition is not something the label
    tells you, so we do not assert it.

    How much oat is in Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion?
    Aveeno does not disclose the concentration, and it is not required to. The
    published research on oat lotions is built at 1% colloidal oat; the oat here sits
    seventh of ten, below ingredients present in larger amounts.

    Is Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion a bad lotion?
    No. Dimethicone and petrolatum are effective, well-tolerated barrier ingredients.
    The narrower, fairer point is that it is a dimethicone-and-petrolatum protectant
    with oat as an inactive, marketed on the oat.

    Nib sets down the magnifying glass, closes a small notebook titled Ingredient Desk, and gives a satisfied nod beside the fully-read label.
    Label read, front claim checked against the back. The oat is real. It is just not the one on the drug-facts line.

  • Neutrogena Hydro Boost: Hyaluronic Acid Is the 15th Ingredient

    Neutrogena Hydro Boost is sold as a
    “Hyaluronic Acid Water Gel,” but on the original fragranced
    formula’s ingredient list, sodium hyaluronate — the INCI name for
    hyaluronic acid — sits fifteenth out of twenty, after a preservative that
    the EU caps at 1%. The gel you feel is built from silicone: dimethicone is the
    second ingredient and a dimethicone crosspolymer the fourth. The HA is really in
    there, and hyaluronic acid works even at very low levels, but the formula is a
    silicone-and-glycerin gel with the hero ingredient near the bottom of the
    list.

    Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel is one of the best-selling drugstore
    moisturizers in America — stocked prominently at every major US drugstore and
    beauty retailer, with thousands of reviews at each. Its whole identity is hyaluronic
    acid. The name is “Hyaluronic Acid Water Gel.” The marketing copy
    leads with it: “Found naturally in your skin, Hyaluronic Acid hydrates by
    binding to water.” That is the front of the jar.

    The back of the jar — the actual ingredient list, ordered roughly by
    weight down to about the 1% mark — tells a story you can check yourself in
    about a minute. We read the whole label. Here is where everything actually
    sits.

    Where does the hyaluronic acid actually land on the label?

    Here is the full list, quoted verbatim from the product page at
    Ulta.com,
    read on 1 September 2026 (HTTP 200). This is the original fragranced Water Gel
    — the bestselling variant. The same twenty names, in the same order, appear
    on the ingredients as listed at CVS.com (product page, read via search index,
    1 September 2026):

    Water, Dimethicone, Glycerin, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Phenoxyethanol, Polyacrylamide, Cetearyl Olivate, Sorbitan Olivate, Dimethiconol, C13-14 Isoparaffin, Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Chlorphenesin, Carbomer, Laureth-7, Sodium Hyaluronate, Ethylhexylglycerin, Fragrance, C12-14 Pareth-12, Sodium Hydroxide, Blue 1.

    Sodium Hyaluronate is the fifteenth name on that list of twenty. It appears
    after water, two silicones, glycerin, a preservative, a film-forming polymer, two
    emulsifiers, more silicone, a solvent, another silicone, a second preservative, a
    thickener and an emulsifier. On a label ordered by weight, the marketed hero
    ingredient in fifteenth place is near the bottom of the formula, not the top.

    One position tells you more than the rest. Sodium hyaluronate (#15) sits
    after phenoxyethanol (#5), a preservative the EU restricts to a maximum
    of 1% in all cosmetics (EU Annex V). If the preservative is present at 1% or
    less, everything listed below it is present at 1% or less too. So the HA is
    almost certainly under 1% of the jar. We can’t read an exact percentage off
    a label — Neutrogena has said in a retailer product Q&A that the
    percentage of each ingredient is proprietary — and the EU cap is not a US
    law, but US formulators routinely use phenoxyethanol at or below 1% as well. The
    position and the preservative both point the same way.

    Marketed hero
    Hyaluronic Acid (sodium hyaluronate)
    Position on label
    Fifteenth of twenty, after the preservative
    Building the gel
    Dimethicone (#2) and a dimethicone crosspolymer (#4)
    Source of list
    Ulta.com, read 1 Sep 2026 (HTTP 200); corroborated at CVS.com
    Nib the small round pencil-sketch creature holds a magnifying glass up to a squat blue jar labelled Hyaluronic Acid Water Gel, squinting at the tiny type on the back rather than the big words on the front.
    The front of the jar sells hyaluronic acid. Nib turns it over to find where the HA actually lands.

    So what is actually building the gel you feel?

    Two silicones near the top of the list are doing the work your fingers read as
    “water gel,” and neither is on the front of the jar.

    Dimethicone sits at position two. It is a silicone, and the
    Cosmetic Ingredient Review classifies it as a “skin-conditioning
    agent—occlusive” and antifoaming agent
    (CIR
    Final Report, Methicones, March 2022    ). It provides a smooth, non-greasy film
    and slows water loss from the skin surface. It is the primary skin-feel
    ingredient in the formula — the second-largest thing in the jar — and
    it is not hyaluronic acid.

    Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer sits at position four.
    It is a silicone elastomer. The CIR lists dimethicone crosspolymers as “film
    formers, skin-conditioning agents—emollient, slip modifiers… viscosity
    increasing agents”
    (CIR
    Final Report, Dimethicone Crosspolymers, September 2012    ). Translated: this is
    the ingredient that turns a liquid into that springy, bouncy gel texture. There
    is a third silicone gel-former, Dimethicone Crosspolymer, at position eleven.

    The gel you press into your skin is a silicone elastomer gel. The
    “water” in “water gel” is real — water is the first
    ingredient — but the springy feel is silicone, and the actual humectant
    drawing water toward your skin is glycerin at position three, not the HA at
    fifteen.

    Position Ingredient What it does
    2 Dimethicone Silicone occlusive; the smooth, non-greasy film and skin feel
    3 Glycerin Humectant; the actual water-binding workhorse here
    4 Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer Silicone elastomer; builds the springy gel texture
    6 Polyacrylamide Film-forming polymer; carries a residual-monomer flag (below)
    15 Sodium Hyaluronate The marketed hero; a humectant, low on the list

    None of this makes it a bad moisturizer. Dimethicone is a genuinely good
    skin-feel and occlusive ingredient, glycerin is one of the best-studied humectants
    there is, and the product feels pleasant for a reason. The point is narrower and
    fairer: it is a silicone-and-glycerin gel with a small amount of hyaluronic acid,
    sold as a hyaluronic acid gel. If you bought it for the HA, you mostly bought the
    dimethicone.

    Nib runs a pencil down a numbered ingredient list and stops near the top at two large drums marked Dimethicone and a crosspolymer, far bigger than a small droplet lower down.
    Positions two and four, both silicone. This is where the gel feel actually comes from.

    What is polyacrylamide doing at position six?

    Nine places above the hyaluronic acid, at position six, is polyacrylamide
    — a film-forming and thickening polymer. It is common, and it is legal in
    the United States. It is worth a sentence for one reason, and it is a regulatory
    note, not an alarm.

    Polyacrylamide is made from acrylamide monomer, and a tiny amount of
    unreacted monomer can remain in the finished polymer. The CIR’s safety
    assessment concluded polyacrylamide is safe as used when residual acrylamide is
    kept at or below 5 ppm in the finished formula, and it notes plainly that
    acrylamide itself is “a demonstrated neurotoxin in humans and a carcinogen
    in animal tests” — while concluding that the levels attainable from
    cosmetic use at those limits do not reach that threshold
    (CIR
    Polyacrylamide re-review, 2022    ). The EU is stricter, capping residual
    acrylamide at 0.1 ppm for leave-on products. The polymer itself does not
    penetrate skin; the residual monomer can.

    We are not going to tell you this product is dangerous — that is not
    what the CIR found and it is not ours to say. What we can tell you is what the
    regulators wrote and where the limits sit, and let you read the assessment
    yourself. No public test data for the actual monomer level in this specific
    product was available to us.

    Nib peers through the magnifying glass at a single tiny droplet marked HA at position fifteen, sitting just below a small bottle labelled Phenoxyethanol.
    The hero ingredient at fifteen, tucked in below a preservative Europe caps at one percent.

    Does the low position mean the HA does nothing?

    No — and this is where being fair matters more than being harsh.
    Hyaluronic acid is effective at strikingly low concentrations. In a 60-day
    randomized controlled trial, formulations containing just 0.1% sodium hyaluronate
    across a range of molecular weights produced statistically significant
    improvements in skin hydration and elasticity versus placebo
    (Pavicic et al., J Drugs
    Dermatol, 2011    ). So the criticism here is not “there’s
    too little HA to do anything.” A tenth of a percent can measurably do
    something.

    The honest criticism is about naming and positioning. The product is named
    for, priced on, and marketed around hyaluronic acid, while the formula that
    actually determines how it feels and behaves is led by silicone and glycerin,
    with HA as a minor component near the bottom of the list. You’re paying a
    hero-ingredient price for a supporting-ingredient amount — and mostly
    paying for dimethicone.

    Two more label notes for the careful reader. Fragrance sits at position
    seventeen; fragrance is a known contact-sensitization risk for some people, so if
    you react to scented products, this is a fragranced formula. And the springy
    blue-green tint comes from Blue 1 at the very bottom, position twenty —
    purely cosmetic. There is a separate fragrance-free Hydro Boost Gel Cream
    with an entirely different formula, in which sodium hyaluronate sits far
    higher, at position six, alongside amino acids and sodium PCA. That is a
    different product with a different story; today’s reading is the original
    fragranced Water Gel only.

    Nib taps the pencil against an open reference book, next to a small vial marked 0.1% with a checkmark, nodding thoughtfully.
    A fair note from the desk: hyaluronic acid does real work even at a tenth of a percent.

    How do you read any ingredient list this way yourself?

    The method here is not special to Neutrogena, and you do not need a chemistry
    background for it. Find the actual ingredient list — the long one, not the
    “key ingredients” callout the brand writes. Ingredients are listed in
    descending order of weight down to about the 1% mark, so where a name sits is a
    rough proxy for how much is in the jar. Then find the ingredient the front of the
    package is selling and see how far down it is. A useful shortcut: locate the
    preservative — here, phenoxyethanol, which the EU caps at 1% — and
    anything below it is present at roughly a percent or less.

    If the hero is in the top few names, the marketing and the formula agree. If
    it is fifteenth, below the preservative, they do not, and something cheaper is
    usually doing the work the label credits to the hero. If what you actually want is
    a moisturizer where the thing on the front is the thing doing the work, that is a
    different kind of product — we make a beef-tallow one, and here is exactly
    what a tallow moisturizer is and how it differs:
    what’s in a
    tallow moisturizer    . Full disclosure: Ingredient Desk is published by the team
    behind Evil Goods, so read that knowing it is ours — but it is the honest
    next question after this one.

    FAQ

    Where is the hyaluronic acid in Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel?
    On the original fragranced formula, sodium hyaluronate is the fifteenth of twenty
    ingredients, listed after phenoxyethanol — a preservative the EU caps at
    1%. On a label ordered by weight, that places the HA near the bottom, most likely
    under 1%.

    What is actually building the gel in Hydro Boost?
    Silicone. Dimethicone is the second ingredient and a dimethicone/vinyl dimethicone
    crosspolymer is the fourth; a third silicone crosspolymer sits at eleven. The
    springy “water gel” texture is a silicone elastomer gel. Glycerin at
    position three is the main humectant.

    Does the low position mean there is too little HA to work?
    No. Hyaluronic acid is effective at very low levels — a 2011 randomized
    trial found measurable hydration and elasticity gains from 0.1% sodium
    hyaluronate. The fair criticism is that the product is named and priced on HA
    while the formula is led by silicone and glycerin.

    What about the polyacrylamide at position six?
    It is a film-forming polymer. The CIR found it safe as used when residual
    acrylamide monomer is kept at or below 5 ppm; the EU limit is 0.1 ppm for leave-on
    products. We link the CIR assessment so you can read the finding yourself. No
    public test data for this specific product’s monomer level was available.

    Is the fragrance-free Hydro Boost the same formula?
    No. The fragrance-free Gel Cream variant has a different formula in
    which sodium hyaluronate sits much higher, at position six, alongside amino acids
    and sodium PCA. This analysis is only about the original fragranced Water Gel.

    Nib sets down the magnifying glass, closes a little notebook titled Ingredient Desk, and gives a small satisfied nod beside the fully-read blue label.
    Label read, front claim checked against the back. The HA is real. The gel you feel is mostly silicone.