Drugstore Skincare Audited: 290 Formulas from CeraVe, Cetaphil and Neutrogena (2026)

How we did this, and why it is different

Ingredient databases are the usual shortcut for audits like this, and we do not use them. They are user-uploaded, frequently stale, and often describe a formula that was reformulated two years ago. Instead we walked each brand's own product sitemap, fetched every product page, and extracted the INCI list the brand itself publishes in August 2026.

Then we split polymers into two groups, which is the step most coverage skips:

• Solid polymer particles — nylon-12, polyethylene, PMMA, PET, acrylates copolymer, silica dimethyl silylate, the crosspolymers. These are discrete solid particles, and they are what the EU restriction on synthetic polymer microparticles actually targets.
• Liquid or soluble polymers — dimethicone, cyclopentasiloxane, the PEGs, polyquaternium. Real petrochemical polymers, but not solid particles, so not microplastics under that definition.

That distinction changes the answer substantially. Counting polyquaternium as a microplastic would have added 22 products and made Neutrogena's cleansers and every baby wash in the Cetaphil range look contaminated. It is a conditioning polymer that dissolves in the bottle. We left it out and say so, because a number you cannot reproduce is not worth publishing.

The results

The headline gap needs one honest qualification. Neutrogena's catalogue is not a like-for-like comparison — it sells foundation, mascara, concealer and shampoo alongside skincare, and CeraVe and Cetaphil largely do not. So we split its 140 formulas by category, which is the fair way to read the 27%:

• Skincare: 18 of 72 (25%)
• Makeup: 20 of 54 (37%) — in line with the ~30% we found across prestige makeup in July, so this is a colour-cosmetics norm rather than a Neutrogena problem
• Haircare: 0 of 14 — every shampoo and conditioner came back clean of solid particles

The makeup range does inflate the headline, but not by as much as it first appears: Neutrogena's skincare alone still runs 25%, four times CeraVe's and Cetaphil's 6%. Splitting the catalogue does not rescue the comparison, it just locates it.

CeraVe: 4 of 71

The brand dermatologists recommend most is, on this measure, the cleanest large skincare brand we have audited. Its three ceramide moisturisers — the products most people actually buy — contain no solid polymer particles at all.

Full detail in does CeraVe have microplastics.

Cetaphil: 5 of 79

Level with CeraVe, and clustered almost entirely in one place: the SPF moisturisers. Both the Daily Facial Moisturizer SPF 15 and the DermaControl SPF 30 use polymethyl methacrylate, and the Healthy Radiance day cream uses acrylates copolymer. That is a pattern, not a coincidence — sunscreen textures lean on polymer spheres for feel and finish.

Full detail in does Cetaphil have microplastics.

Neutrogena, and the Hydro Boost problem

Hydro Boost is the line Neutrogena has built its modern identity on: water gel, hyaluronic acid, weightless hydration. It is also the most polymer-dense line in the brand, with 15 products containing a solid synthetic polymer.

This is not hypocrisy so much as chemistry. That distinctive bouncy, non-greasy gel texture is difficult to achieve with oils, and the industry standard route to it is acrylates copolymer and dimethicone crosspolymers — polymer networks that hold water in a gel and break under shear so the product feels light. The texture is the polymer. You cannot have the Hydro Boost feel without something doing that job.

The affected products run right through the line: the Water Gel moisturiser, the Gel-Cream for Eyes, the niacinamide serum, the exfoliating cleanser, both sizes of the gel cleanser, the milk cleanser, the City Shield SPF and the lip sleeping mask.

Put against Neutrogena's skincare alone, that is 12 of its 18 skincare hits in one line — the rest is three sunscreens, two Body Clear products and a retinol serum. Full product-by-product breakdown in does Neutrogena have microplastics.

What this means for a rinse-off versus a leave-on

A cleanser is on your face for thirty seconds and then goes down the drain. A moisturiser stays on for hours. For the environmental case, the cleanser is arguably worse — everything in it reaches the water system. For the personal-exposure case, the leave-on matters more.

Most of the Hydro Boost hits are cleansers, which softens the personal exposure story and sharpens the environmental one. If your concern is what goes down the drain, the gel cleansers are the ones to change. If your concern is what sits on your skin all day, focus on the Water Gel moisturiser and the eye cream.

The comparison that matters: skincare versus makeup

In July we ran this same method across 81 prestige makeup formulas from Fenty, Huda, rhode and Kylie and found 24 containing solid polymer particles — around 30%. Drugstore skincare as a whole comes in at 16%, and the two gentle-positioned brands at 6%.

So the intuition that the dermatologist aisle is cleaner is correct, and by a wide margin. This is worth saying plainly, because the reflex in this space is to assume every large brand is equally bad. On this measure they are not. CeraVe and Cetaphil are doing something genuinely different from a colour cosmetics house, and it shows up in the data.

What to actually do

• Your basic moisturiser is almost certainly fine. CeraVe Moisturizing Cream, Daily Moisturizing Lotion and the classic Cetaphil lotion and cleanser are clean.
• Check your SPF first. Across all three brands, sunscreens and SPF moisturisers are where polymer particles cluster.
• If you use Hydro Boost, that is the line to look at. Fifteen products, and the cleansers rinse straight into the water system.
• Read for five words. Nylon, polyethylene, acrylates, methacrylate, crosspolymer. That covers nearly every hit in this audit.
• Do not panic about dimethicone. It is a synthetic polymer and it is not a microplastic. Different problem, different conversation.

Brand-level detail: CeraVe and Cetaphil and Neutrogena. For the makeup comparison see the July makeup audit and clean beauty's plastic loophole. To check anything yourself, how to read a cosmetic ingredient list.