What We Leave Out Of Every Formula · Indiefog Naturals

What We Leave Out

You already know what
you are looking for. You are
looking for what is missing.

You read the list before you buy, and most of what you are checking is whether something is absent. So here is the absence, written down.

The list

We formulate by subtraction. Every ingredient we leave out is one less thing your skin has to respond to. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why this page exists. An absence is harder to show than an ingredient, so we say it plainly instead.

01 · Never In Any Formula

Checked across all thirty-six formulas

Not a philosophy. A search through every ingredient list we hold, and the count beside each one is how many formulas it appears in.

Synthetic fragrance
Among the most commonly reported triggers for mast cell and skin reactivity. This is the one exclusion we claim across the whole line, and it holds everywhere.
0 of 36
Sulfates
SLS, SLES, and coco-sulfate. Effective cleansers that strip a surface already short on comfort.
0 of 36
Parabens
Left out because the reader who checks for them wants them gone. We preserve another way, described below.
0 of 36
Phenoxyethanol
A common preservative, and a common entry on the list of things reactive skin has learned to avoid.
0 of 36
PEGs and ethoxylates
Removed line-wide. The Gentle Balm was the last one, reformulated in August with squalane and coco-caprylate in place of its ethoxylated emollient.
0 of 36
Silicones
No dimethicone, no siloxanes. Slip comes from plant oils and squalane instead.
0 of 36
Drying alcohols
No alcohol denat, no SD alcohol. Nothing that gets a formula to feel light by taking water with it.
0 of 36
Formaldehyde releasers
No DMDM hydantoin, no imidazolidinyl or diazolidinyl urea, no quaternium-15.
0 of 36
Mineral oil and petrolatum
Occlusives that sit on the surface. We use plant lipids the skin already recognises.
0 of 36
Soy
Our Vitamin E and Vitamin K2 are sunflower-derived. The allergen note that travels with them is a light sunflower and ragweed consideration.
0 of 36
Essential oils, in the facial line
Checked across every facial formula we make. The rosemary you will see on an elixir label is leaf extract, which is the antioxidant holding the oils stable, and it is not an essential oil.
0 of 20 facial
02 · What We Keep In

Every water formula we make is preserved.

This is the one place a shorter list would be the wrong answer. An unpreserved water formula is a contamination risk, and that is not a risk to hand to anyone whose immune system is already working hard.

System One

100% natural

Used where the formula allows it. Named on the label, like everything else.

System Two

COSMOS and Ecocert certified

Benzyl alcohol with dehydroacetic acid, used where safety calls for higher performance. Benzyl alcohol does its work as a preservative. It can appear as a fragrance allergen on EU labels, so we name it openly and call those products unscented or no added fragrance, never fragrance-free.

Anhydrous

No preservative at all

Most of our butters and oils contain no water, so nothing can grow in them. They need no preservative, and they get none.

03 · Where We Make Exceptions

The places this page gets complicated

A clean list is easy to write when you leave the awkward parts off it. These are the awkward parts.

03.1

The menthol butters

Cooling Clarity · Deep Clarity

These two are built around their botanicals, and no unscented version of them exists. They carry eight essential oils including wintergreen, which is naturally high in methyl salicylate, and they sit outside our salicylate-conscious collection for that reason. If you avoid salicylates or aspirin, or you take blood thinners, reach for a Descent butter instead and talk to your doctor first.

03.2

The scented body butters

Gentle Descent · Grounded Descent

Lightly scented with botanical essential oils. Each one has a fully essential-oil-free twin in Pure Descent and Pure Reset, so the choice stays yours. Essential-oil-free is a facial line claim, and on the body it is a per-product one.

03.3

The mineral tint

Mineral Brightening Elixir

You will see CI numbers on this label. They are iron oxides, CI 77491, CI 77492, and CI 77499, alongside non-nano zinc oxide. Mineral pigments, there for tint and finish. This is not a sunscreen and it offers no sun protection.

03.4

Gums and thickeners

Ceramide Barrier Cream · Shield Serum

We used to say the line was free of them. It is not. These two contain xanthan gum and carbomer, which is what gives them their texture, so we retired the claim rather than keep making it. A claim you have to qualify twice is a claim worth dropping.

04 · Words You Will Not See Here

Some words survive because nobody checks them

You have read all of these on a label that still made you react. Here is what each one actually tells you.

Toxin-free

There is no legal definition and no test behind it. Anything sold as a cosmetic is meant to be safe at the dose it is used, so the phrase describes a baseline rather than a standard. We name the ingredients and the amounts instead.

Chemical-free

Water is a chemical. So is every plant oil on this page. The word points at a feeling rather than a fact, and a reader who knows chemistry hears it as a reason to be careful.

Fragrance-free

We only use this where it is true, which is on products with no benzyl alcohol. The rest are unscented, or carry no added fragrance. Those three phrases mean different things and we keep them different.

Safe for [condition]

We do not know your body, your history, or what else you are using. We can tell you what is in a formula and what is left out. What is safe for you is a conversation with your doctor, and a patch test.

The list is the whole
argument.

Every absence on this page is deliberate, and every one of them is checkable. That is the point of publishing it.

Full INCI sits on every product page, in label order, with the preservation system named and the allergen notes said out loud.

See the salicylate-conscious collection → Indiefog Naturals · Nervous System Skincare™

This is a language for noticing. It is not a diagnosis, and it belongs alongside your doctors, never instead of them.

Indiefog products are cosmetics, made to cleanse, soften, and comfort skin. They do not treat, cure, or prevent any condition. We suggest a patch test on the inner forearm, left 24 hours, before facial use.