Parabens

A family of preservatives that stop mould and bacteria growing in anything containing water. They are absorbed through skin and behave weakly like oestrogen. The debate is about dose and accumulation across many products rather than any single one.

Definition and health context from FDA.

We checked 3,681 products for parabens and confirmed it in none, while 50 remain plausible and unresolved.
PFAS Authority, September 2026. Free to cite with a link. See the full dataset.
What a flag here means. Reported and likely mean we found real evidence, a published ingredient, a test result or a recall. Possible means the material or the category makes it credible and nobody has ruled it out. 11 products were checked for it and came back with nothing known. A flag is not a measurement, and we say which is which on every product page.

Where parabens turns up

Categories we grade, worst first, as a share of what we scored in each.

CategoryFlaggedScoredShare
BB Cream31520%
Hand Soap21513%
Sunscreen2520112%
Body Wash3359%
Beauty Primers & Setting Sprays1157%
Concealer1157%
Foundation1157%
Hair Spray1157%
Hand Sanitizer1157%
Lip Gloss1157%
Moisturizer1157%
Makeup3546%
Shampoo41912%
Conditioner21022%

We confirmed it in nothing, and that is the finding

Every one of the 50 flags for parabens in this database sits at possible. No published ingredient list, test result or recall in what we have read puts it in a specific product we grade. That is a genuine answer to the question, and it is different from saying the products are clean.

What to buy instead

Highest scoring products with no flag for it, in the categories where it is worst.

How to spot parabens yourself

What is actually visible to someone holding the product, which for most of these is the only check available.

  • Names ending in paraben, usually near the end of an ingredient list where preservatives sit.
  • Methylparaben and propylparaben are the two most common by a wide margin.
  • Any product containing water and sold unrefrigerated needs a preservative of some kind, so the question is which.
  • "Paraben-free" tells you what was removed, not what replaced it.

Where it turns up outside our data

Lotions, shampoos and conditioners, makeup, shaving products, and some processed foods as an antimicrobial.

What the rules actually say

The European Union banned five parabens from cosmetics in 2014 and caps the concentration of the rest. The FDA does not restrict them and has stated it does not have evidence they are unsafe as used. Both positions are current, which is why the honest answer here is a disagreement rather than a verdict.

Read alongside FDA and our state by state guide to PFAS bans.

Common questions

What is parabens?

A family of preservatives that stop mould and bacteria growing in anything containing water. They are absorbed through skin and behave weakly like oestrogen. The debate is about dose and accumulation across many products rather than any single one.

Which products contain parabens?

We flagged 50 of 3,681 graded products as plausible, and confirmed it in none of them. That is worth stating plainly. It means the material or the category makes it credible and no independent result has ruled it out, not that we found it. BB Cream carries the most plausible cases at 20%.

Is parabens in bb cream?

More than in anything else we grade. 3 of the 15 bb cream we scored carry a flag for it, which is 20%. The full breakdown per product is on each product page.

What can I buy instead?

In the categories where it turns up most, the highest scoring products with no flag for it are Goddess Garden Goddess Garden Natural Sunscreen SPF 30 6 oz at 100, Raw Elements Raw Elements Eco Formula SPF 30 Sunscreen at 100, Raw Elements Raw Elements Face & Body Sunscreen Tin SPF 30 at 100. Every one of those was graded on the same rubric as the products above.

How can I tell if a product has parabens in it?

Names ending in paraben, usually near the end of an ingredient list where preservatives sit. Methylparaben and propylparaben are the two most common by a wide margin. Any product containing water and sold unrefrigerated needs a preservative of some kind, so the question is which. It turns up in lotions, shampoos and conditioners, makeup, shaving products, and some processed foods as an antimicrobial.

Is parabens banned?

The European Union banned five parabens from cosmetics in 2014 and caps the concentration of the rest. The FDA does not restrict them and has stated it does not have evidence they are unsafe as used. Both positions are current, which is why the honest answer here is a disagreement rather than a verdict.

How do you know?

We do not lab test. Every grade here is built from published ingredient lists, materials, certifications, brand disclosures, recalls and third party lab results where those already exist. Where a product has been independently tested we use that result and say so, and where a brand publishes nothing we score the silence rather than guessing.

1% of everything we grade carries a flag for parabens. See every hazard we track or browse the full products list.