Ingredient Desk

Tag: petrolatum

  • Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream: Niacinamide Is the 11th Ingredient

    Cetaphil rebuilt its Moisturizing Cream in 2021 and now leads every ad with niacinamide. On the label, niacinamide is the 11th name on a list that runs to twenty-three — sitting after the emulsifiers, the silicones and a fatty alcohol. The pair doing the actual moisturizing, glycerin and petrolatum, are second and third, and they did not change. So the new formula is largely the old workhorse with a niacinamide story wrapped around it.

    Cetaphil is one of the three creams US dermatologists name most often for dry skin, alongside CeraVe and Vanicream. The Moisturizing Cream is its flagship tub. In 2021 the brand reformulated it: out went the parabens, in came niacinamide, panthenol and sweet almond oil. Every piece of marketing now opens with “a dermatologist-backed blend of niacinamide.” The label tells a slightly different story about where that niacinamide falls in line — and it is worth reading in order.

    A disclosure before we go on: Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, a tallow skincare brand. We read labels for a living and we sell an alternative for dry skin. We will point at ours once, clearly labelled, near the end. Everything about Cetaphil below comes from Cetaphil’s own US page, a retail listing, and the peer-reviewed literature — dated and linked so you can check us.

    Nib, a small round pencil-sketch creature, holds a magnifying glass up to an oversized tub of moisturizing cream, squinting at the tiny ingredient list running down the side of the jar.
    Nib does the thing most of us skip at the shelf: reads the whole list, in order.

    What does the Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream label actually say?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim from Cetaphil’s own US product page (cetaphil.com, read 11 September 2026). The same list, in the same order, appears on the Ulta retail listing:

    Water, Glycerin, Petrolatum, Dicaprylyl Ether, Dimethicone, Glyceryl Stearate, Cetyl Alcohol, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Peg-30 Stearate, Panthenol, Niacinamide, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Tocopheryl Acetate, Pantolactone, Dimethiconol, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Carbomer, Propylene Glycol, Disodium Edta, Benzyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Hydroxide, Citric Acid

    Ingredient lists are ordered by descending concentration down to roughly 1%, after which the order stops meaning much. Cetaphil’s page notes that formulas are updated and asks you to check the physical package, so treat this as the list on the brand’s US site on the date above rather than an eternal truth. This is the current, post-2021, paraben-free formula; the number on your own tub is the only source that settles what is in it today.

    Nib stands beside a tall pencil-drawn bar chart; the three tallest bars near the front are labelled water, glycerin and petrolatum, while a small bar labelled niacinamide sits far back in eleventh place.
    The first three entries build the cream. Niacinamide, the ingredient on the front of the box, arrives in eleventh.

    Where does the niacinamide actually sit?

    Niacinamide is name number eleven, on a list that ends at twenty-three. In front of it are water, glycerin, petrolatum, an emollient ether, the silicones, an emulsifier, a fatty alcohol, a seed oil, another emulsifier (PEG-30 stearate, typically used at roughly 1–3%), and panthenol. In other words, the lead marketing ingredient falls into the second half of the formula, just behind an emulsifier that itself sits at a low single-digit percentage.

    Cetaphil does not disclose the niacinamide concentration, and we are not going to invent one. What position #11 tells you is only this: it is below the ingredients ahead of it, one of which is used at about 1–3%. The independent clinical literature on niacinamide clusters its measured effects at 2–5%. A 2006 study in the Journal of Cosmetic and Laser Therapy (Draelos et al., PMID 16766489) tested 2% on facial sebum; a 2000 paper in the British Journal of Dermatology (Tanno et al., PMID 10971324) showed nicotinamide raising ceramide biosynthesis in skin at similar concentrations. Whether Cetaphil’s cream lands inside that window is not something the label lets you know. The inference is yours to draw; we will not put a number on it that the brand itself declines to.

    Nib peers through the magnifying glass at a single small jar labelled niacinamide, a question mark drawn above it, with a faint percent sign scribbled out beside the jar.
    Present, yes. At what percentage? The label does not say, so neither do we.

    So what is actually moisturizing your skin?

    The answer is in the first three lines. Glycerin at #2 is a humectant — it pulls water toward the skin. Petrolatum at #3 is the occlusive that seals it in. That pairing is the whole of the cream’s long-hydration story, and it is worth being precise about petrolatum, because “petroleum byproduct” alarms people more than the evidence justifies.

    Petrolatum is an FDA-recognized OTC skin protectant (21 CFR § 347.10), permitted as an active at 30–100% in that category. In Cetaphil’s cream it is listed as a cosmetic ingredient rather than a labelled active, but the regulatory grounding for what it does is well established, and it is one of the best-evidenced barrier ingredients in dermatology. Crucially, glycerin and petrolatum sat at the top of the pre-2021 formula too. The reformulation added niacinamide, panthenol, sweet almond oil and vitamin E on top of a chassis that was already a competent dry-skin moisturizer. The new box is not a new cream so much as a new narrative around the same opening entries — which is not a criticism of the cream, only of reading the front of the box instead of the side.

    Nib sits cross-legged reading a long unfurled ingredient scroll, nodding approvingly at the top three lines while the lower entries trail off the edge of the paper.
    The top of the list is doing the work. It is the same top of the list it had before the relaunch.

    Is there anything a “sensitive skin” buyer should note?

    One entry is worth a calm mention. Propylene glycol appears at position #18 — a humectant and solvent, present here at a low concentration given where it falls in the list. It is worth flagging only because this cream is marketed as hypoallergenic and for sensitive skin, and propylene glycol has a documented, if modest, contact-allergy rate. It is a well-characterised skin sensitiser reviewed in the dermatology literature (Dermatitis, 2018, PMID 29059092), with cosmetics the most common exposure route. A low position reduces that risk; it does not erase it. This is not a claim that the product harms anyone — most people use propylene glycol formulas with no trouble at all — only a note that a sensitiser with a known patch-test signal is on the list of a product sold specifically to sensitive skin.

    What the formula does not contain is also worth a line. There are no ceramides and no hyaluronic acid, the pair that define its shelf-neighbours CeraVe and Neutrogena Hydro Boost. Cetaphil’s barrier support comes from petrolatum and glycerin instead, with niacinamide potentially assisting at whatever level it is present. That is a legitimate approach with strong evidence — it is simply a different one from what the packaging’s ingredient-forward language implies.

    What should you actually take from the label?

    Read the order, not the front. On this tub, the entries you can be confident are doing the heavy lifting — glycerin and petrolatum — are second and third, and they are the same ones the cream had before its 2021 relaunch. The niacinamide the marketing leads with is eleventh, at a percentage the brand does not disclose and the label cannot confirm sits in niacinamide’s evidenced range. None of that makes it a bad cream. It makes it a petrolatum-and-glycerin cream with a niacinamide label.

    If you are here because your dry skin wants an occlusive that seals moisture in and you would rather it come from an animal fat than a petroleum derivative, that is the whole argument behind our own tallow for dry skin — grass-fed beef tallow, which is naturally rich in the fatty acids skin uses. We are not going to tell you it out-performs petrolatum in a trial, because that trial is not ours to cite. We will tell you honestly that it is a different occlusive with a much shorter research record, and let you weigh that against a cream whose active backbone is a well-studied petroleum jelly.

    Frequently asked questions

    Where is niacinamide on the Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream ingredient list? It is the 11th name on the list, which runs to twenty-three, after water, glycerin, petrolatum, an emollient ether, the silicones, an emulsifier, a fatty alcohol, a seed oil, a second emulsifier and panthenol.

    Did Cetaphil change the formula? Yes. In 2021 the brand removed parabens and added niacinamide, panthenol, sweet almond oil and vitamin E. Glycerin and petrolatum, the top of the list, were unchanged.

    What is the strongest moisturizer in the formula? By position, glycerin (#2, a humectant) and petrolatum (#3, an occlusive). Petrolatum is an FDA-recognized OTC skin protectant.

    What percentage is the niacinamide? Cetaphil does not disclose it. Position #11 puts it below an emulsifier typically used at 1–3%; the independent literature clusters niacinamide’s measured effects at 2–5%. The label does not let you confirm where this cream falls.

    Nib closes a small notebook and gives a thumbs-up beside the tub of cream, the ingredient scroll rolled neatly under one arm, satisfied at having read the whole list.
    Read the order, not the front of the box. The label was telling the truth the whole time.

  • Crème de la Mer: The Miracle Broth Is Ingredient #1. Water Is Ingredient #24.

    Water is the 24th ingredient in the classic Crème
    de la Mer Moisturizing Cream. The bio-fermented Algae Extract that La Mer calls
    its “Miracle Broth” really is first on the list — the marketing claim holds
    there. What surrounds it is the surprise: the second and third ingredients are
    mineral oil and petrolatum, the same petroleum occlusives that do the heavy
    lifting in a tub of drugstore Vaseline, and water does not turn up until two
    dozen ingredients later.

    Most moisturizers are mostly water. You can usually confirm it in a second:
    “Water/Aqua/Eau” sits at position one on the label, because water is cheap, it
    carries everything else, and it is what makes a cream feel light. Crème de la
    Mer is built the other way around. That single fact tells you almost everything
    about what this cream is and how it works — so it is worth reading the actual
    label instead of the box.

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim from the Crème de la Mer
    product page on cremedelamer.com (read 3 September 2026 via the brand page’s
    indexed listing, as the page itself refused a direct request that day) and
    corroborated against an independent
    DermApproved ingredient review:

    Algae Extract, Mineral Oil\Paraffinum Liquidum\Huile Minerale, Petrolatum, Glycerin, Isohexadecane, Microcrystalline Wax\Cera Microcristallina\Cire Microcristalline, Lanolin Alcohol, Citrus Aurantifolia (Lime) Peel Extract, Sesamum Indicum (Sesame) Seed Oil, Eucalyptus Globulus (Eucalyptus) Leaf Oil, Sesamum Indicum (Sesame) Seed Powder, Medicago Sativa (Alfalfa) Seed Powder, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seedcake, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Seed Meal, Sodium Gluconate, Copper Gluconate, Calcium Gluconate, Magnesium Gluconate, Zinc Gluconate, Magnesium Sulfate, Paraffin, Tocopheryl Succinate, Niacin, Water\Aqua\Eau, Beta-Carotene, Decyl Oleate, Aluminum Distearate, Octyldodecanol, Citric Acid, Cyanocobalamin, Magnesium Stearate, Panthenol, Zea Mays (Corn) Oil, Limonene, Geraniol, Linalool, Hydroxycitronellal, Citronellol, Benzyl Salicylate, Benzyl Benzoate, Sodium Benzoate, Alcohol Denat., Fragrance (Parfum)

    Nib, a small round pencil-sketch creature, holds a magnifying glass up to a tall jar labelled with a very long ingredient list and squints at the first line.
    Nib starts at the top of the list, where the algae extract genuinely sits.

    Where does the Miracle Broth actually sit?

    Right at the top, which is the honest part of the story. “Algae Extract” —
    La Mer’s bio-fermented sea-kelp “Miracle Broth” — is ingredient number one. On
    an INCI list, ingredients above roughly one percent are ordered by descending
    weight, so being first means it is the single largest component by mass. When a
    brand names a product after its hero ingredient, that ingredient is very often
    buried near the preservatives. Not here. If your only question was “is there
    real algae extract in this, and is there a lot of it,” the label answers yes.

    The honest caveat is about evidence, not presence. Independent analysis of
    whether the Miracle Broth does what the marketing implies is thin. DermApproved
    characterises the clinical evidence for its efficacy as
    “limited” — a fermented kelp broth carrying vitamins and
    minerals, developed by Max Huber in the 1960s, but without much published,
    independent clinical validation of the specific fermentation process. That is a
    fair thing to say out loud: the ingredient is real and abundant, and the case
    for what it does is mostly the brand’s own.

    Nib runs a pencil down the second and third lines of the list and raises an eyebrow at the words mineral oil and petrolatum.
    Two lines down, the base of the cream reveals itself: mineral oil, then petrolatum.

    What is the cream actually made of?

    Read the next two lines and the formula shows its hand. Position two is
    Mineral Oil (listed by its EU name, Paraffinum Liquidum). Position three is
    Petrolatum — petroleum jelly. Together they are the base the algae extract is
    suspended in, and they are the reason the cream feels the way it does.

    These are not obscure ingredients. Petrolatum is, per

    CosmeticsInfo.org    , “used widely in cosmetics as a moisturizer as well as in
    OTC drugs as a skin protectant” — the same category of ingredient that is the
    active in Aquaphor and in a jar of plain petroleum jelly. It works by occlusion:
    it sits on the surface and slows the water your skin already holds from
    evaporating. Mineral oil at position two does much the same job. That is a
    genuinely effective way to keep skin from drying out — there is nothing wrong
    with it. It is simply the same mechanism, and the same family of raw materials,
    that costs a few dollars a tub at any pharmacy.

    Crème de la Mer’s moisturizing base
    Mineral oil (#2) and petrolatum (#3) — petroleum-derived occlusives that
    seal in existing moisture. Retails in the hundreds of dollars.
    A drugstore petroleum jelly
    Petrolatum as the single active occlusive — the same sealing mechanism.
    A few dollars a tub.

    The point is not that La Mer is “just Vaseline.” It is not — there is algae
    extract, a spread of gluconate minerals, sesame and almond meals, vitamins, and
    a fragrance blend layered on top. The point is narrower and more useful: the
    part of this cream that does the actual moisturizing is an occlusive system you
    can buy for the price of a coffee. What the premium buys is everything wrapped
    around that base, plus the name.

    Nib counts down the list on stubby fingers, magnifying glass tucked under one arm, looking increasingly surprised.
    Nib keeps counting. Water still has not appeared.

    Why is water the 24th ingredient?

    Count down the list and water — “Water/Aqua/Eau” — does not appear until
    position 24, after the algae extract, the two petroleum occlusives, the waxes,
    the seed oils and powders, and the whole run of gluconate minerals. This is what
    formulators call an anhydrous, or near-anhydrous, cream: a fat-and-wax base with
    very little water in it.

    That is a deliberate choice, not a defect, and it changes what the product
    does. A water-heavy moisturizer leans on humectants that draw water toward the
    skin. A cream like this leans almost entirely on occlusion — sealing in the
    moisture already there. If your skin is very dry, or you live somewhere cold and
    harsh, an occlusive-first cream can genuinely suit you. If you were expecting the
    light, water-based “hydration” the word moisturizer usually implies, this is a
    different animal, and the label is where you find that out.

    This is also the natural place to mention the alternative, and we will be
    plain that it is ours: Evil Goods, the team who publish Ingredient Desk, make a
    beef-tallow
    moisturizer     that works through much the same occlusive idea — a fat that
    sits on the skin and slows water loss — using rendered animal fat rather than
    petroleum. Whether you prefer a petroleum base, a plant base or an animal fat is
    a real preference to have; the useful move is knowing which one you are actually
    buying.

    Nib finally taps the pencil on the word water far down the list and holds up a small hand-written sign reading number 24.
    There it is — water, the twenty-fourth thing on the label.

    Why are there so many fragrance ingredients at the end?

    The tail of the list carries a cluster of named fragrance components:
    Limonene, Geraniol, Linalool, Hydroxycitronellal, Citronellol, Benzyl
    Salicylate, then a catch-all “Fragrance (Parfum).” They are not there by
    accident, and they are not there because the amounts are dangerous. Under
    EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009, a set of specific
    fragrance substances must be declared individually on a leave-on product once
    they exceed a very low threshold, because they are documented contact allergens
    in some people. The regulation’s job is disclosure: it lets a fragrance-reactive
    shopper scan the list and decide for themselves.

    So the honest read is regulatory, not alarmist. Six named allergens plus the
    parfum blend — and, higher up at position ten, Eucalyptus Globulus Leaf Oil,
    another common sensitiser for reactive skin — mean this is a fragranced cream. If
    your skin is easily irritated by scent, that is worth knowing before you spend.
    If it is not, it is simply information the label is required to give you.

    A note on the label itself

    One caveat, in the spirit of a site that asks you to check its work: published
    ingredient lists for this cream vary slightly by source. The brand-page version
    quoted above includes Zea Mays (Corn) Oil and Benzyl Benzoate; the DermApproved
    version omits both and instead lists Citral. That kind of difference usually
    means a regional formula variant or a list captured at a different point in the
    product’s life, not an error — but it means the printed carton in your hand is
    the authority, and if a specific ingredient matters to you, read the box you are
    buying rather than any third-party transcription, this one included.

    So is it worth it?

    That depends entirely on what you thought you were buying. If you wanted a
    rich occlusive balm and you like the ritual, the scent and the jar, La Mer
    delivers a competent occlusive cream — and the algae extract it is named after
    really is the largest ingredient in it. If you assumed a premium price meant a
    premium moisturizing mechanism, the label says otherwise: the sealing is done by
    mineral oil and petrolatum, water sits at 24, and the same occlusion is available
    in a great many cheaper forms. If you would rather that seal came from a
    food-grade fat than a petroleum one, that is where a
    tallow-based
    moisturizer like ours     is worth a look. Either way, the argument for reading
    the whole label — not just the first word of it — makes itself.

    Nib sits down beside the closed jar, magnifying glass in lap, giving a small satisfied shrug as if to say the label told the whole story.
    The label was honest all along. You just had to read past the first word.

  • CeraVe Moisturizing Cream: The Ceramide Formula Built on Petrolatum

    One tub of CeraVe Moisturizing Cream carries a list of 24 things. The three ceramides the brand markets as its defining feature sit at positions 9, 10 and 11. Petrolatum — one of the best-evidenced skin-barrier ingredients in dermatology — is at position 7, ahead of every ceramide. Reading that order does not make CeraVe a bad cream. It changes what you are actually paying for.

    CeraVe is named for ceramides. The word comes from cera, and the brand’s whole story is “3 essential ceramides.” That story is real: the ceramides are on the label, above the preservative, and there is published evidence behind the delivery system. But the label also tells you something the front of the tub does not — which ingredients are doing the heavy lifting, and where the marketed heroes actually fall in line.

    A quick disclosure before we go further: Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods, a tallow skincare brand. We read labels for a living and we sell an alternative. We will point at ours once, clearly labelled, near the end. Everything about CeraVe below comes from CeraVe’s own page and the peer-reviewed literature, dated and linked so you can check us.

    Nib, a small round pencil-sketch creature, holds a magnifying glass up to an oversized CeraVe-style tub, squinting at the tiny ingredient list printed on the side.
    Nib does what most of us never do at the shelf: reads the whole list, in order.

    What does the CeraVe Moisturizing Cream label actually say?

    Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim from CeraVe’s own US product page (cerave.com, read 2 September 2026):

    Aqua / Water / Eau, Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Cetyl Alcohol, Ceteareth-20, Petrolatum, Potassium Phosphate, Ceramide NP, Ceramide AP, Ceramide EOP, Carbomer, Dimethicone, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Sodium Lauroyl Lactylate, Sodium Hyaluronate, Cholesterol, Phenoxyethanol, Disodium EDTA, Dipotassium Phosphate, Tocopherol, Phytosphingosine, Xanthan Gum, Ethylhexylglycerin

    That is the standard white-tub formula — not the Intensive version, not the Baby version. CeraVe’s page carries its own caveat that formulas are “updated regularly” and asks you to check the physical package, so treat this as the list on the brand’s site on the date above rather than an eternal truth. Ingredient lists are ordered by descending concentration down to roughly 1%, after which the order stops meaning much.

    One honest note on sourcing: a UK ingredient database, SkinSort, lists a CeraVe “Moisturising Cream” with the ceramides much further down — positions 16, 17 and 24. That is almost certainly the EU formulation, which CeraVe has reformulated regionally over the years. We used the brand’s own US page as the primary source and are flagging the discrepancy rather than picking the more dramatic version. If you want to be certain, the number on your own tub is the only source that settles it.

    Nib stands beside a tall bar chart drawn in pencil; the tallest bars near the front are labelled water, glycerin and petrolatum, while three small bars labelled ceramide sit further back.
    The first seven entries build the cream. The ceramides arrive after that.

    Where does petrolatum sit, and why does that matter?

    Petrolatum is ingredient number seven — ahead of all three ceramides. It is worth being precise about what that ingredient is, because “petroleum byproduct” scares people more than the evidence justifies.

    Petrolatum is an FDA-recognized OTC skin protectant (21 CFR § 347.10). The Society of Cosmetic Chemists, in a 2022 review, calls it “the gold standard topical agent for reducing transepidermal water loss.” And it is not merely an inert seal: a 2016 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (Czarnowicki et al., PMID 26431582) found petrolatum upregulated filaggrin, loricrin and antimicrobial peptides in skin — barrier proteins, not just a greasy film.

    So the ingredient at position 7 has decades of evidence behind it for exactly the job a moisturizer is bought to do. The ceramide narrative is stacked on top of a backbone — water, glycerin, three fatty-alcohol emollients, an emulsifier and petrolatum — that is already a competent moisturizer before a single ceramide is counted. That backbone also costs, per gram, a fraction of what the ceramides do.

    Nib peers through the magnifying glass at three tiny jars in a row, each labelled Ceramide NP, AP and EOP, lined up behind a much larger jar marked petrolatum.
    The three marketed ceramides are genuinely here — sitting just behind the workhorse.

    Are the ceramides just for show, then?

    No — and this is where a lazy takedown would overreach. The ceramides are at positions 9, 10 and 11, which puts them above the preservative phenoxyethanol at position 18. That matters: it means they are almost certainly present at more than a trace, unlike a hero ingredient that shows up after the preservative. CeraVe does not publish the exact percentage, and neither will we invent one.

    The evidence for ceramide moisturizers is real but specific. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis (PMC10162745) found ceramide-containing moisturizers improved atopic-dermatitis severity scores significantly better than other moisturizers — but the difference in water-loss reduction was not statistically significant. In plain terms: for managing eczema-prone skin, the ceramide formula showed a real edge; for the raw job of holding water in, it was not measurably ahead of other good moisturizers. Petrolatum, meanwhile, is the standout at that one job.

    CeraVe also funds its own supporting research, which the brand is entitled to do as long as it is disclosed. A 2020 study (Draelos, J Drugs Dermatol) — funded by CeraVe’s parent, L’Oréal — reported that four weeks of the ceramide cream raised the skin’s own ceramide content by about 10%. That is a genuine finding worth knowing, and it is industry-funded; both things are true at once.

    Nib sits at a small desk stamped Ingredient Desk, holding a pencil over an open notebook, looking thoughtfully at the tub rather than crossing it out.
    The desk’s verdict isn’t ‘avoid.’ It’s ‘know what you’re paying the premium for.’

    So what are you actually buying?

    You are buying a well-made moisturizer whose moment-to-moment moisturizing comes mostly from glycerin at position 2 and petrolatum at position 7 — a pair with sixty-plus years of evidence between them and a production cost measured in cents per gram — plus a real, above-the-preservative dose of three ceramides and a patented delivery system that the brand has published data on. None of that is a con. The gap worth noticing is only this: the front of the tub sells the ceramides, and the label shows they are the supporting cast to a petrolatum-and-glycerin base you could get, in barrier terms, from a far plainer product.

    If you have eczema-prone skin, that ceramide edge may be worth the premium; the meta-analysis supports that use specifically. If you just want to stop water leaving dry skin, a simpler petrolatum-forward cream does most of the same work.

    There is a third road, which is where we come in. Some people would rather their occlusive be a skin-identical fat than a petroleum distillate — not because petrolatum is unsafe (the evidence above says it is not), but as a preference for a fatty-acid profile closer to skin’s own. That is the case for tallow, and we walk through the honest version of it — including where the evidence is thin — on our own tallow-for-dry-skin page (this one is ours, Evil Goods). We are not going to pretend a head-to-head clinical trial exists; it largely does not. Read it as one option, not a verdict.

    How do CeraVe’s marketed heroes line up on the label?

    Here is the marketing language against the label, position by position:

    Marketed as a hero Position on the label What that implies
    Ceramide NP 9 of 24 Above the preservative; more than trace, exact % undisclosed
    Ceramide AP 10 of 24 Second of the three
    Ceramide EOP 11 of 24 Third of the three
    Hyaluronic acid (Sodium Hyaluronate) 16 of 24 Lower third, near the preservative zone — low concentration
    Dimethicone 13 of 24 Silicone; adds slip and a moisture-retaining film
    Petrolatum (also brand-listed) 7 of 24 Ahead of every ceramide; does most of the barrier work

    To CeraVe’s credit, the brand names petrolatum as a key ingredient itself — it is not hiding it. The label and the marketing are not in conflict so much as differently weighted. The label just tells you the weighting.

    Frequently asked questions

    Where do the ceramides fall in CeraVe Moisturizing Cream?
    On CeraVe’s US product page (read 2 September 2026), Ceramide NP, AP and EOP are ingredients 9, 10 and 11 of 24, ahead of the preservative at position 18.
    Is petrolatum bad for your skin?
    The evidence says the opposite for barrier support: it is an FDA-recognized OTC skin protectant and the Society of Cosmetic Chemists calls it the gold standard for reducing water loss. A 2016 study found it upregulates skin-barrier proteins.
    Are the ceramides present at only trace levels?
    No. They appear above the preservative, which suggests more than a trace. CeraVe does not publish the exact percentage, so we do not either.
    Why do different databases list the ceramides in different spots?
    A UK database shows them much lower, which is likely the EU formula; CeraVe reformulates by region. We used the brand’s US page and flagged the difference rather than choosing the more dramatic order.

    Ingredient Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods. We read labels, cite our sources, and link out at least as often as we link to ourselves. Check anything here against the list on your own tub — that is the point of the exercise.

    Nib, pencil tucked behind, gives a small satisfied nod beside the closed notebook and the tub, the magnifying glass set down — work done for the day.
    Nib’s rule of the desk: read the whole list, in order, and let the label do the talking.

  • Gold Bond Shea Butter Lotion: Where the Shea Actually Sits

    Gold Bond Softening Hydrating Cream & Lotion is
    sold on African Shea Butter, but on the ingredient list shea butter extract sits
    sixteenth on a list of forty-five — below petrolatum, two silicones and a
    run of emulsifiers. The ingredients actually holding moisture in your skin are
    petrolatum at position seven and dimethicone at position four, neither of which
    the brand features on the front. The shea is present, low on the list, as an
    extract that the industry safety data reports at up to 5% in leave-on
    products.

    Gold Bond’s Softening Cream is one of the most widely stocked body
    lotions in America, and its whole pitch is shea. The brand’s own product
    page lists “African Shea Butter” first among its Key Ingredients,
    alongside cocoa butter, coconut oil and a handful of vitamins. That is the front
    of the bottle. The back of the bottle — the actual ingredient list, which
    is ordered roughly by weight down to about the 1% mark — tells a different
    story, and it is a story you can check yourself in about a minute.

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

    Where does the shea butter actually land on the label?

    Here is the full list, quoted verbatim from the product page at
    goldbond.com, read on 30
    August 2026. The brand’s FAQ confirms this is the same formula previously
    sold as Gold Bond Ultimate Softening — only the name changed — and
    that the cream and lotion share it:

    Water, Glycerin, Hydroxyethyl Urea, Dimethicone, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Jojoba Esters, Petrolatum, Steareth-21, Cetyl Alcohol, Distearyldimonium Chloride, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Stearyl Alcohol, Cyclopentasiloxane, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Methosulfate, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter Extract, Glyceryl Stearate, Methyl Gluceth-20, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Silk Amino Acids, Panthenol, Ceramide NG, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retinyl Palmitate, Hydrolyzed Jojoba Esters, Palmitoyl Hexapeptide-12, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Extract, Acacia Farnesiana Flower Extract, Ethylhexylglycerin, PEG-10 Phytosterol, Butylene Glycol, Dimethiconol, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Propylene Glycol, Stearamidopropyl PG-Dimonium Chloride Phosphate, Polysorbate 60, EDTA, Methylparaben, Fragrance, Potassium Hydroxide, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Extract, Isopropyl Myristate, Tribehenin.

    Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter Extract is the sixteenth name on that
    list, which runs to forty-five entries in all. It appears after water, glycerin, a urea
    humectant, dimethicone, coconut oil, jojoba esters, petrolatum, five emulsifiers
    and conditioners, aloe, and a second silicone. On a label ordered by weight, a
    hero ingredient in sixteenth place is in the lower half of the formula, not the
    top.

    One more detail matters. The label does not say “shea butter.” It
    says shea butter extract — a diluted or fractionated form rather
    than the raw butter. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review’s safety assessment
    reports that this extract form is used at up to 5% in leave-on skin products
    (CIR
    Safety Review, shea butter, 2016    ). We cannot read an exact percentage off a
    label — no brand is required to disclose one — but the position and
    the “extract” wording both point the same way: this is a small
    fraction of the bottle, marketed as the main event.

    Marketed hero
    African Shea Butter
    Position on label
    Sixteenth of forty-five names (as “shea butter extract”)
    Doing the moisturizing
    Petrolatum (#7) and dimethicone (#4)
    Source of list
    goldbond.com, read 30 Aug 2026 (HTTP 200)
    Nib the round pencil-sketch creature holds a magnifying glass up to a tall lotion bottle whose front reads African Shea Butter, squinting at the tiny type on the back.
    The front of the bottle says shea butter. Nib flips it over to see where the shea actually lands.

    So what is actually moisturizing your skin?

    Two names near the top of the list are doing the heavy lifting, and
    neither is on the front of the bottle.

    Petrolatum sits at position seven. It is the most effective
    occlusive in the formula by a wide margin. In the Journal of Cosmetic
    Science    , a review notes that petrolatum “is one of the most common and
    effective occlusive agents,” slowing water loss measured as
    transepidermal water loss (TEWL) by more than 50%, while certain other oils
    reduce it by less than 20%
    (Journal of Cosmetic Science,
    vol. 73    ). That is the mechanism behind “softening hydrating”: a
    thin occlusive film that stops your own water from evaporating. Shea butter is a
    gentler occlusive; petrolatum is the one carrying the result.

    Dimethicone sits at position four. It is a silicone
    film-former, and it is where the silky, non-greasy slip comes from — the
    reason a petrolatum-heavy lotion feels light instead of like a jar of ointment.
    It is doing real work on the skin-feel that makes the product pleasant to use.
    It is also, again, not one of the ingredients the front of the bottle asks you
    to buy the product for.

    Position Ingredient What it does
    4 Dimethicone Silicone film-former; the silky slip and non-greasy feel
    7 Petrolatum The main occlusive; slows water loss by more than 50%
    13 Cyclopentasiloxane (D5) Volatile silicone; spreads then evaporates
    16 Shea butter extract The marketed hero; a gentle emollient, low on the list
    19 Cocoa seed butter Also on the front label; sits even lower

    None of this makes it a bad lotion. Petrolatum is a genuinely good occlusive
    and dimethicone is a genuinely good skin-feel ingredient. The point is narrower
    and fairer: the formula is a petrolatum-and-silicone moisturizer with a modest
    amount of shea extract, sold as a shea butter moisturizer. If you bought it for
    the shea, you mostly bought the petrolatum.

    Nib runs a pencil down a long numbered ingredient list and stops at two jars near the top marked Petrolatum and Dimethicone, both larger than the small shea nut lower down.
    Positions four and seven, doing the real occlusive work. Neither one is on the front of the bottle.

    What is cyclopentasiloxane doing at position thirteen?

    Three places above the shea, at position thirteen, is cyclopentasiloxane
    — a volatile silicone usually called D5. It is a spreading agent: it
    carries the formula across the skin and then evaporates, leaving the other
    ingredients behind. It is common and it is legal in the United States.

    It is worth a sentence because Europe is treating it differently. The EU has
    classified D5 as very persistent and very bioaccumulative and is restricting it
    to no more than 0.1% in leave-on cosmetics from 6 June 2027, having already
    restricted it in rinse-off products
    (EU
    Regulation 2024/1328    ). We are not going to tell you it is dangerous —
    that is the regulator’s call, not ours, and the US FDA has not restricted
    it. What we can tell you is that an ingredient sitting above the marketed hero in
    a US leave-on lotion is one the EU is actively phasing out of that same category.
    Read the regulation and decide for yourself.

    Nib peers at a single small bottle marked D5 at position thirteen, holding the magnifying glass close and glancing at a folder stamped with an EU flag.
    A volatile silicone at thirteen that Europe is phasing out of leave-on products by 2027.

    Should the vitamins and cocoa butter on the front change your mind?

    The Key Ingredients callout also names cocoa butter and vitamins A, C and E.
    Cocoa seed butter is at position nineteen — below the shea. The vitamins
    are lower still: magnesium ascorbyl phosphate (a vitamin C derivative) at
    twenty-four, tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E) at twenty-five, retinyl palmitate (a
    vitamin A ester) at twenty-six. These are real ingredients, and at those
    positions they are present in small amounts. That is normal for a mass-market
    lotion; it is only worth flagging because every one of them is on the front of
    the bottle, and every one of them sits in the back third of the list.

    If what you actually want from a body moisturizer is a short list where the
    occlusive doing the work is the thing on the front, that is a different kind of
    product. We wrote about the trade-off between a long lotion INCI and a
    single-ingredient occlusive in
    Tallow vs. Lotion:
    What’s Actually in the Bottle     — that is our own site (Ingredient
    Desk is published by the team behind Evil Goods), so read it knowing that, but
    it is the honest next question after this one.

    Nib taps the pencil against a cluster of tiny vitamin drops sitting far down the label, well below the shea nut, each one small.
    Cocoa butter and the vitamins are on the front too. On the back they sit in the final third.

    How do you read any ingredient list this way yourself?

    The method here is not special to Gold Bond, and you do not need a chemistry
    background for it. Find the actual ingredient list — the long one on the
    back or the tab the brand buries below the marketing copy, not the Key
    Ingredients callout. 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 bottle is selling, and see how far
    down it is. If the hero is in the top few names, the marketing and the formula
    agree. If it is sixteenth, they do not, and something cheaper and more effective
    is usually doing the work the label credits to the hero.

    That is the whole trick, and it is why an ingredient list ordered by weight is
    one of the few pieces of genuinely honest information on a cosmetic package. The
    brand chooses the front. The regulator sets the order of the back.

    FAQ

    Where is the shea butter in Gold Bond Softening Hydrating lotion?
    Sixteenth on a list of forty-five, written as “shea butter extract,”
    below petrolatum, dimethicone and a second silicone. On a label ordered by
    weight, that places it in the lower half of the formula.

    What is actually moisturizing in Gold Bond Softening lotion?
    Petrolatum at position seven is the main occlusive — it slows water loss
    more effectively than most oils. Dimethicone at position four gives the light,
    silky feel. Both sit above the shea, and neither is on the front label.

    Is Gold Bond Ultimate Softening the same as Softening Hydrating?
    Yes. The brand’s FAQ states the name changed from Ultimate Softening to
    Softening Hydrating with no change to the formula, and the cream and lotion share
    that formula.

    Should I worry about the cyclopentasiloxane in it?
    It is a volatile spreading silicone, legal in the US and unrestricted by the FDA.
    The EU has classified it as very persistent and very bioaccumulative and is
    restricting it in leave-on cosmetics from June 2027. We link the regulation so
    you can read it and decide.

    Is Gold Bond Softening a bad lotion?
    No. Petrolatum and dimethicone are effective, well-tolerated ingredients. The
    honest criticism is narrower: it is a petrolatum-and-silicone moisturizer with a
    small amount of shea extract, marketed as a shea butter product.

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