What We Leave Out
The formula is also
what isn't in it.
Indiefog is formulated by exclusion. Every ingredient that didn't make it into a formula was left out for a reason — and this is the page where we name them, along with the places the rule has an exception.
Most brands tell you what they put in. If your skin reacts, the more useful list is the other one. Every ingredient is either doing work or asking for it — and the most direct way to ask less of reactive skin is to leave things out.
Left out on purpose
Each one below is a standing rule across everything we make, unless the note says otherwise.
Synthetic Fragrance
Brand-wide — no exceptionsThe most commonly reported trigger among the people we formulate for, and the single hardest ingredient on a label to evaluate. “Fragrance” and “parfum” are legal umbrella terms that can stand in for hundreds of undisclosed components. If you can't read it, you can't vet it — and a reader who checks the INCI before they buy deserves better than a word that hides the answer.
We don't use synthetic fragrance in anything we make. Not in the facial line, not in the butters, not in the sets.
We use the phrase “fragrance-free” only on SKUs formulated without benzyl alcohol. Where benzyl alcohol is present as part of our preservative system, we say unscented or no added fragrance instead — because benzyl alcohol is listed as a fragrance allergen on EU labels even though it's there to preserve, not to scent. The stricter phrase would be easier to market. It would also be less true.
Essential Oils
Every formula but fourEssential oils are natural, and natural is not the same as gentle. For a great many of the people we formulate for they are a frequent reactor, so they are left out of everything we make with four exceptions — and our entire facial line is completely essential-oil-free. Nothing you put on your face from Indiefog contains them.
Where essential oils do appear, they are botanical essential oils and nothing else. Never synthetic fragrance, and never described as doing anything for your skin — they are there as scent, and we name them as scent.
Gentle Descent and Grounded Descent are lightly scented body butters. Each has a completely essential-oil-free twin, formulated to be the same butter without them: Pure Descent and Pure Reset. If you want the product without the scent, it already exists.
Deep Clarity and Cooling Clarity are our two menthol butters, built around essential oils as the active itself. There is no unscented version of either, and there can't be — the essential oil is the product. We'd rather say that on the page than let an essential-oil-free banner elsewhere on the site imply otherwise.
Harsh Actives
Brand-wideHigh-percentage acids, aggressive peels, strong retinoids, and the whole category of products built on the idea that discomfort is evidence. Stinging gets read as potency. Flaking gets read as progress. It's a persuasive story, and it asks you to interpret your skin's alarm signal as a compliment.
We don't formulate that way. An active strong enough to force a visible change quickly is, for reactive skin, usually strong enough to set something off — and the people we make this for have generally already run that experiment on themselves.
Bakuchiol rather than a strong retinoid. Enzymatic exfoliation — fruit-derived papain and bromelain — rather than high-strength acids. Niacinamide and panthenol, both well tolerated and both unhurried. Renewal that takes longer and asks less.
Fillers & Trend Actives
Brand-wideIngredients that are in a formula to lengthen the label, thicken the texture, or catch a cycle. They are the quietest kind of load: nothing dramatic, nothing you'd notice on any single day, just more for the skin to process in exchange for nothing.
Our formulas are short because the list stopped where the work stopped. An ingredient count is a claim we can substantiate — nine ingredients means nine, and we'll tell you what each one is doing.
Grit & Sharp Texture
Brand-wideTexture is an ingredient decision, not a finishing touch. Scratchy particles and abrasive scrubs are a sensory event as much as a physical one, and for skin that's already overstimulated, that's a cost with no return.
So we leave grit out. Where renewal is physical rather than enzymatic, it's ultra-fine and non-abrasive by design.
Milk, Egg, Shellfish & Wheat
Facility-levelThis one isn't a formulation choice — it's a building-level one. Our facility is milk-free, egg-free, shellfish-free, and wheat-free. Nothing containing them is handled in the space where your products are made.
For anyone who reacts to trace exposure, the facility matters as much as the ingredient list, and it's usually the thing nobody publishes. So we're publishing it.
Gluten
Certified at the sourceOat is one of the most comforting botanicals in skincare and one of the most commonly cross-contacted crops in agriculture — those two facts sit uncomfortably close together, and most brands resolve them by not mentioning the second one.
Our oat is certified gluten-free. Verified at the source, not assumed from the plant. Celiac disease is permanent, and for anyone navigating it, sourcing that's been verified rather than presumed is the difference between a product you can consider and one you can't. We name it plainly so the decision stays yours to make.
Soy
In our vitamin sourcingVitamin E (Tocopherol) and Vitamin K2 / MK-7 (Menaquinone-7) are both commonly soy-derived across the industry, and the INCI name won't tell you which you're holding. Ours are sunflower-derived — a sourcing decision we made deliberately and one we'll confirm on request.
Sunflower belongs to the Asteraceae family, alongside ragweed. If you're sensitive to ragweed, that's a consideration worth knowing before you buy — we'd rather hand you the fact up front than let you discover it on your own skin.
Known Salicylate Sources
Salicylate-Conscious collectionSalicylate sensitivity is one of the harder things to shop for, because the sources are botanical and scattered across ingredient lists that otherwise look gentle.
We've gathered the formulas built without known salicylate sources in one place — and named openly the ones that are built around them, so the collection tells you both halves. See the Salicylate-Conscious collection.
Everything the EU Prohibits
The floor, not the standardWe formulate to the European standard rather than the American one. Every substance prohibited for cosmetic use under Annex II of EU Cosmetics Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 — more than 1,600 of them — is out of our formulas. We sell in the United States, where the prohibited list runs closer to a dozen.
Where the EU sets a concentration limit rather than a ban, we formulate inside the limit.
This is the floor, not the standard. Meeting it is where we start — the nine exclusions above are the part that's ours.
One thing we refuse to leave out
Exclusion is a discipline, not a competition. There is a point where leaving one more thing out stops protecting you and starts putting you at risk — and in cosmetics, that point is preservation.
Any formula containing water can grow bacteria, yeast, and mold. An unpreserved product with a beautifully short label is a more concrete hazard to reactive skin than a properly preserved one will ever be. So we preserve, and we name the system rather than hiding it behind a softer word: benzyl alcohol and dehydroacetic acid, both permitted under organic ECOCERT standards.
It costs us the shorter ingredient list. It costs us the ability to say fragrance-free on those SKUs. We consider that a fair price.
“We never compromise safety for a cleaner-sounding label.”
The claims we don't make
Exclusion applies to language as much as to formulation. These are the things we could say, that other brands do say, and that we leave out because we can't stand behind them.
We don't claim to treat anything
Indiefog makes cosmetics. Our products cleanse, soften, hydrate, and comfort skin — they don't repair, heal, restore, or cure. Where you see us describe how skin feels or looks rather than what it's doing underneath, that's not vagueness. That's the honest limit of what a cosmetic can claim.
We don't call anything “safe for” a condition
Condition names on this site describe who a product is made for — skin navigating eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, or MCAS — never something a product acts on. No formula is safe for a diagnosis, and any brand that tells you otherwise is guessing about your body. Bring us alongside your doctors, never instead of them.
We don't claim sun protection
Our Mineral Brightening Elixir contains zinc oxide for tint and finish. It is not a sunscreen and offers no sun protection. We could let the word mineral imply otherwise and stay technically silent. Implying it would be the same as saying it.
We don't say “chemical-free” or “toxin-free”
Those phrases work by making you afraid, and they don't survive contact with a chemistry textbook. We'd rather name the specific ingredient we left out and the specific reason, and let you decide whether the reason holds. Fear is easy marketing. It's poor information.
For skin that cannot
afford a mistake.
The people we formulate for have usually been burned by a “clean” product that still made them react, and dismissed by someone who told them it couldn't have been the product. We can't undo either of those. We can hand you the whole list — what's in, what's out, and where the exceptions are — and let you make the call yourself.
That's the whole method. Name the ingredient, name the reason, and name the thing left out on purpose.
Indiefog Naturals — Nervous System Skincare™Formulated for reactive, easily-overwhelmed skin. We suggest a patch test on the inner forearm, left 24 hours, before facial use.
Indiefog products are cosmetics — made to cleanse, soften, and comfort skin, not to treat, cure, or prevent any condition.