Sal-Free^TM Centre

"Sal-Free^TM" means an ingredient or product does not contain any salicylates.  It is a reserved term.   * A trademark of Guai-Support.

 Warning: Read About Salicylates before purchasing products NOT listed in these data bases. 
For information, click on the arrows to open these drop-down boxes. 

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Information and Assistance
Understanding the Molecular Structure of Ingredients

Be careful of adhering to overly simplistic rules:  There are NO standard naming conventions for chemicals!  Granted, there are generally acceptable naming conventions, but these are many and quite varied.  If they were "standardized", there would not be a trillion synonyms for most chemicals (salicylic acid included).  There are general rules one can start with but always be on the lookout for exceptions and many are listed on our site. 

When attempting to ascertain if an ingredient is a salicylate:

• first scan the ingredients for a plant name you recognize which would rule the product out (colors and fragrances, although often containing sals, are considered to be in negligible amounts and thus of no concern.  Salicylate flavors have to be considered separately as some are ok and some not);
• next scan our Sal-Free^TM Ingredients and Sal-Full^TM Products & Ingredients lists on this web site;
• finally, you can search a chemical website (see below), and see if it offers a molecular structure.  If you can find a molecular structure, that means the ingredient is a single chemical.  The next step is to compare the molecular structure to that of salicylic acid, and see if the chemical in question contains the salicylate component.

	Salicylic acid (click on the words and type 'salicylic acid' into the search engine to invoke the same diagram depicted here)    Formula: C7H6O3 Molecular Weight 138.1226 CAS Registry Number: 69-72-7 Benzoic Acid, 2-hydroxy-  (synonym of salicylic acid) Formula: C7H6O3 Molecular Weight: 138.12 CAS Registry Number: 69-72-7) This exact pattern must exist somewhere in the molecular structure of  any chemical that is a member of the salicylate family.  The exception  is the presence and location of the "H" s. There may also be only one H hanging off the carbons.  NOTE The order of OH vs HO is non-significant, and the entire diagram can be rotated.
The critical components we need to look for are: the Benzene ring (the hexagon) the single arm to an oxygen or OH combo and the "Y" (ie, the seventh carbon) with a double-bounded oxygen (double line; O) and a single bonded oxygen (single line; either O, or OH) The single-line to the "OH" must be adjacent to the "Y". The "Y" is section where the arm splits into what you call 2 arms, one of which is a double line leading to an O. This is called a "carboxyl". If you were to rotate the diagram 90o counter clockwise, I think you'd recognize what we're calling the "Y". The entire diagram is salient. That is, all salicylates will contain the exact and complete structure of salicylic acid within their own molecular structure. Note that the orientation of the benzene ring is insignificant. IE, it can rotated to any of 360 degrees. The single-line to the "OH" must be adjacent to the "Y", however. The position of that OH makes a difference on whether the chemical blocks or not.  Alpha hydroxy and the parabens have the OH opposite the "Y" vs the beta hydroxy which has the OH next to the Y.  We believe the alpha/paraben chemicals do not block.  However, we really can't state implicitly that they are not members of the salicylate family. To be exact, we know that any chemical containing the EXACT salicylic acid molecular structure will block.  Not being chemists, we can't tell you whether the similar structures with the OH in an octo- position are scientifically salicylates or not.  We do know however that they do NOT block (i.e. it's possible that alpha hydroxy is in the "global" salicylate family, but it is definitely NOT salicylic acid and it doesn't block).
	Homosalate (salicylate) Chemical Structure: 3,3,5-trimethylcyclohexyl salicylate [118-56-9] Synonyms: 2-hydroxybenzoic acid, 3,3,5-trimethylcyclohexyl ester; 3,3,5-trimethylcyclohexyl salicylate; Cyclohexanol, 3,3,5-trimethyl-, salicylate; heliophan; homomenthyl salicylate; homosalate; salicylic acid 3,3,5-trimethylcyclohexyl ester; Trimethylcyclohenyl salicylate;

Methylparaben (non-salicylate) Chemical Structure: Methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate [99-76-3] (non-salicylate) Synonyms: 4-Hydroxybenzoic acid methyl ester; 4-Hydroxy methyl benzoate; Aseptoform; Methyl paraben; Methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate; Methyl Parasept; Methyl Chemosept; Nipagin; Nipagin M; Tegosept M;

There are several ingredients where controversy exists regarding status.  Menthol is not a salicylate but it is described as such by some and thus is one which can be used as an example here:

Menthol (non-salicylate) Chemical Structure: Cyclohexanol, 5-methyl-2-(1-methylethyl)-, (1alpha,2beta,5alpha)- [89-78-1] Synonyms: 3-p-Menthanol; Cyclohexanol, 5-methyl-2-(1-methylethyl)-, (1alpha,2beta,5alpha)-; Menthol;

Hence, all we have to do to absolutely determine if a chemical is in the salicylate family or not, is to compare the molecular diagrams (i.e., if the chemical in question does not contain a Benzene ring, it definitely is not a salicylate.  However, if it does have a Benzene ring, then we must inspect it more closely).

If the chemical finder finds the ingredient but does not have a molecular structure that implies the ingredient is a combination of chemicals, and not one single chemical, then we have to do further research to try and determine if salicylates are one of the chemicals in the ingredient.  Oils are classic examples of this, and of course, vegetable oils contain salicylates in addition to many other chemicals.

When something is specified as an "extract from a plant" we have to be suspicious. 

If the chemical finder cannot find the chemical, then try other combinations of the name.  There is no absolute standard for the way chemical names are listed so often we have to find alternative spellings, order, etc.   Do a net search to find other names for the same ingredient, or the INCI number.  Then I go back to the chemical finder and search again.

NOTE: The problem we have sometimes run into is that the primary chemical ingredient is touted and it is not a specific chemical extract (this is what we call "not pure").  The reverse is that the ingredient is a pure chemical, and the companies feel the marketing need to tout the source so we know it is "natural". The reality is, a chemical with a specific molecular structure, regardless of the source, is the same chemical and the source doesn't matter¹.  This is what sometimes causes confusion.  We need to determine if the extract is a single chemical or not.  If it is a single chemical, then we need to determine if the chemical structure is a sal or not.  If it does not have a specific chemical structure, we'd have to assume that it contained sals since it was extracted from a plant.

¹ The source cannot change the status of a chemical, however, it may come into play in the sense that there may be a suspicion of contamination which might ultimately cause blocking in some instances.  The blocking test should be carried out and, given that partial blocking is difficult to ascertain, all other identifying methods of blocking should also be utilized (i.e., aquarium urine testing for PO4, noting any change in cycling symptoms, stopping the product and starting using it again a couple of times, etc.

Following are some sites where you can search on chemicals and find good stuff like their synonyms and structures, including that of salicylic acid.  For some chemicals, you might have to follow some "more information" links to find the diagram.  And in some cases, you might have to do a net search on the chemical name before you find the molecular diagram.  Sometimes one or the other isn't available, and they often have chemicals under differing names.

http://chemfinder.cambridgesoft.com/
(Note that you might have to install a plug-in to use this site.)

http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/name-ser.html

http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/

http://chemacx.cambridgesoft.com/chemacx/index.asp

For fun, look up something determined by us to be *Sal-Free, such as "chitin".  You'll see by the diagram that it is definitely not in the salicylate family.

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The information on this site is the property of the Guai-Support ListOwner Tesa Marcon: vashtii@optusnet.com.au  
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