Is silicone a rubber or plastic?

A Material That Defies Categories

So, is silicone a rubber or a plastic?

The simple and most accurate answer is: Neither. Silicone occupies a unique space as a hybrid material, a synthetic polymer with properties of both. While it possesses the flexible, water-resistant, and rubbery feel we associate with rubber, its chemical structure and manufacturing process are entirely different and often more comparable to a high-performance plastic.

To truly understand silicone, you have to think of it not as a member of either family, but as a class of material all its own—a family of polymers called siloxanes.

This distinction is not just a matter of semantics; it is the key to understanding everything that makes silicone special. It explains why a silicone spatula can go from the freezer to a hot pan without melting, why it’s safe enough to be used for medical implants, and why its environmental footprint is so complex and debated. In this guide, we will unravel the science behind this remarkable material, compare it directly to the plastics and rubbers you know, and ultimately give you a clear framework for deciding when and where to use it in your life.

The Great Debate: Why the Confusion Exists

The confusion is understandable. Walk through any home goods store, and you’ll find silicone in a dizzying array of forms that mimic both plastic and rubber.

• It Feels Like Rubber: Pick up a silicone phone case or a piece of bakeware. It’s flexible, soft to the touch, and can be stretched—all classic characteristics of an elastomer, the technical term for rubber. Its ability to form a watertight seal makes it a go-to for gaskets and caulking, roles traditionally held by rubber.
• It’s Processed Like Plastic: Silicone can be injection molded into complex, precise shapes—from intricate ice cube trays to detailed medical components—using the same manufacturing techniques that produce hard plastic toys and car parts. It can be produced in any color of the rainbow, from crystal clear to vibrant solids, a versatility often associated with plastics.

This dual personality is precisely why a simple “either/or” answer fails. Silicone is the best of both worlds, a testament to the power of polymer chemistry to create materials that are perfectly tailored to the unique demands of modern life. To grasp how this is possible, we need to look under the hood at the molecular level, at the fundamental building blocks that separate silicone from every other polymer on Earth.

A Class of Its Own: The Chemistry of Silicone

The secret to silicone’s unique identity lies in its molecular backbone. Imagine the frame of a skyscraper—its strength and properties are determined by the core materials it’s built from. The same is true for polymers.

What Is the Silicone Backbone?

Virtually every plastic and rubber you have ever encountered, from the polyethylene in a plastic bag to the natural rubber in a car tire, is built on a carbon backbone. Their core structure is a long chain of carbon atoms linked together (C-C-C-C…). This carbon-based chemistry is the foundation of all organic polymers.

Silicone is fundamentally different. It is an inorganic polymer. Its backbone is not made of carbon, but of a repeating chain of silicon and oxygen atoms (…-Si-O-Si-O-Si-…). This is the siloxane bond, and it is the single most important feature of silicone chemistry.

Why does this matter? The bond between silicon and oxygen is significantly stronger and more stable than the carbon-to-carbon bond in organic polymers. This inorganic spine gives silicone its superpowers:

• Extreme Temperature Resistance: The high energy of the Si-O bond means it takes a lot more thermal energy (heat) to break it apart. This is why silicone can remain stable at temperatures that would cause a plastic to melt into a puddle or a rubber to become brittle and crack.
• Chemical Stability: This robust backbone is also far less susceptible to attack from chemicals, UV radiation, and ozone. While the carbon bonds in plastics can be broken down by prolonged sun exposure, causing them to become faded and brittle, silicone’s inorganic backbone endures.

Attached to this silicon-oxygen backbone are organic side groups, typically methyl groups (-CH3). These organic additions are what give silicone its useful properties like flexibility and water repellency. This combination of a strong, stable inorganic core with versatile organic side groups is the essence of silicone’s hybrid nature. It is a true chimera of the materials world.

From Sand to Spatula: How Silicone Is Made

Understanding how silicone is made further clarifies why it’s neither a naturally occurring rubber nor a typical petroleum-based plastic. The journey from raw material to finished product is a multi-step, high-tech process.

1. Start with Silica: The process begins with silica, one of the most abundant minerals on Earth, which is simply silicon dioxide (SiO2). The most common form of silica is sand.
2. Isolate Silicon: The silica is heated to extremely high temperatures in a furnace with carbon. This process removes the oxygen, leaving behind pure, elemental silicon (Si).
3. Create Silanes: This pure silicon is then reacted with methyl chloride in a chemical process known as the Müller-Rochow process. This reaction forms complex silicon-containing molecules called chlorosilanes. This is a critical step where the building blocks for the polymer are created.
4. Polymerization: The chlorosilanes are then carefully reacted with water. This causes the silicon atoms to link together via oxygen atoms, forming the long, repeating Si-O-Si-O chain of the siloxane polymer backbone. The length of this chain and the specific organic side groups used can be controlled to create silicones with a vast range of properties, from thin, watery fluids to thick, gummy solids.
5. Curing: In its raw polymer form, silicone is a thick, un-crosslinked gum. To become the durable, solid material we recognize, it must be “cured” or “vulcanized.” This involves adding a catalyst (like platinum or peroxide) and applying heat, which creates cross-links between the long polymer chains, locking them into a stable, three-dimensional network. This is the final step that transforms the gooey polymer into a finished, solid silicone part.

This process highlights the key differences: it doesn’t come from a rubber tree, and its primary raw material isn’t crude oil. It is a synthetic creation born from the fusion of inorganic sand and organic chemistry.

Defining the Key Players: Plastic vs. Rubber

To finalize our understanding of where silicone fits, let’s establish clear, technical definitions for plastic and rubber.

Plastics are a broad category of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic polymers. They are typically divided into two main groups:

• Thermoplastics: These are the most common plastics. They soften and become moldable when heated and solidify when cooled. This process is reversible, meaning they can be melted and reshaped multiple times. Examples include polyethylene (PET) in water bottles, polypropylene (PP) in containers, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in pipes.
• Thermosets: These plastics, once cured by heat or a chemical reaction, are set permanently. They cannot be re-melted. If you apply too much heat, they will char and decompose rather than melt. Examples include epoxy resins, Bakelite, and polyurethane.

Rubbers, technically known as elastomers, are polymers defined by their high elasticity. They can be stretched to many times their original length and will return to their original shape once the force is removed. This property comes from their long, coiled polymer chains with a low degree of cross-linking, which allows the chains to uncoil under stress and snap back into place. They can be natural (latex from the rubber tree) or synthetic (like neoprene or EPDM).

So where does silicone land? It is a thermoset when cured, as it cannot be re-melted. It is also a clear elastomer, as it exhibits high elasticity. But its inorganic Si-O backbone means it does not belong to the family of organic polymers that defines all other plastics and rubbers.

It is, therefore, its own category: a thermosetting inorganic elastomer.

Now that we’ve established the fundamental chemical identity of silicone, we can move beyond theory. In the next section, we will put silicone in a direct, head-to-head showdown with traditional plastics and rubbers, comparing them across the critical performance metrics that matter most to engineers, designers, and consumers.

Silicone vs. Plastics: A Head-to-Head Comparison

When we compare silicone to plastics, we are comparing its unique inorganic stability against the carbon-based structure of thermoplastics like Polypropylene (PP), Polyethylene (PET), and Polycarbonate (PC), and thermosets like epoxy. This chemical difference creates a cascade of performance gaps that are crucial for any engineer or informed consumer to understand.

Temperature Resistance: The Unbeatable Champion

This is perhaps the most dramatic and defining difference. The battle of temperature resistance is won or lost at the molecular level, and silicone’s silicon-oxygen bonds give it an almost unfair advantage.

A standard kitchen spatula made from Polypropylene plastic has a melting point of around 160°C (320°F). If you accidentally leave it resting on the edge of a hot skillet, it will quickly deform and melt. A nylon spoon might fare slightly better, but it will still soften and eventually fail.

Now consider a silicone spatula. Most standard silicone grades are rated for continuous use at temperatures up to 230°C (450°F), with some high-performance grades pushing past 300°C (572°F). You can use it to stir boiling candy, scrape a searing hot pan, and even put the bakeware it’s made from directly into a hot oven without any concern. It remains flexible, stable, and completely undamaged.

The same is true at the opposite end of the spectrum. As temperatures drop, the long carbon chains in most plastics lose their mobility, causing the material to become rigid and brittle. A PVC pipe can easily crack from an impact in freezing weather. Silicone, however, retains its flexibility at cryogenic temperatures, with some formulations remaining pliable down to -100°C (-148°F). This is why silicones are used for seals and gaskets on spacecraft and high-altitude aircraft, where they are exposed to the extreme cold of the upper atmosphere and beyond.

Verdict: In the realm of temperature stability, there is no contest. Silicone’s operational temperature range is vastly wider than almost any common plastic, making it the default choice for applications involving extreme heat or cold.

Durability and Longevity: UV and Weather Resistance

Imagine a cheap plastic lawn chair left outside for a few summers. Its vibrant color fades, the surface becomes chalky, and eventually, the plastic becomes so brittle that it cracks under your weight. This degradation is a direct result of the carbon backbone being attacked and broken down by ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.

Silicone is virtually immune to this type of degradation. Its inorganic Si-O backbone does not absorb UV radiation in the same way carbon bonds do, so it does not break down. A silicone seal used around an outdoor window will remain flexible, waterproof, and intact for decades, enduring direct sunlight, rain, snow, and ozone without cracking, hardening, or crumbling.

This long-term stability, known as “weatherability,” makes silicone a premium material for any long-life outdoor application. While plastics are often chosen for outdoor products due to their low cost, their limited lifespan often makes them a false economy. Silicone represents a higher upfront investment for a vastly longer service life.

Verdict: For outdoor applications or those involving prolonged UV exposure, silicone offers dramatically superior longevity and durability compared to the vast majority of plastics.

Flexibility and Hardness: A Tunable Spectrum

Plastics and silicones offer a wide range of flexibility, but they achieve it in different ways. Plastics range from the rigid, shatter-resistant polycarbonate in safety glasses to the soft, flexible PVC in a garden hose. Silicone, however, is almost always on the flexible end of the spectrum, existing as a true elastomer.

The hardness of these materials is measured on a scale called Shore Durometer. Silicone’s hardness typically ranges from Shore 10A (extremely soft and gummy, like a gel insole) to Shore 80A (much firmer, like the sole of a shoe). This allows its properties to be finely tuned. A soft, low-durometer silicone is perfect for a comfortable watch band or a compliant medical seal, while a harder, higher-durometer silicone provides the necessary rigidity for a high-performance baking pan or a durable industrial roller.

While some specialized plastics known as Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPEs) can mimic the rubbery feel of silicone, they do not possess its thermal stability or purity. For most applications requiring a combination of flexibility and extreme temperature resistance, silicone remains the superior choice.

Verdict: Silicone owns the “flexible thermoset” space. While plastics offer a wider range of rigidity, silicone provides a tunable spectrum of flexibility and hardness that cannot be matched by other materials when combined with its other elite properties.

Biocompatibility and Food Safety: The Medical-Grade Standard

This is a critical area of concern for modern consumers, and the difference between materials is stark. The term biocompatibility means that a material does not produce a toxic or immunological response when exposed to the body or bodily fluids.

Many plastics have faced scrutiny over the years for leaching harmful chemicals. Bisphenol-A (BPA), a component of polycarbonate, and phthalates, used to soften PVC, are known endocrine disruptors that can leach from containers into food and water. While many manufacturers have moved to “BPA-free” plastics, concerns about the safety of replacement chemicals persist.

Silicone, in its pure, medical-grade form, is exceptionally biocompatible and inert. It does not react with food or drinks and does not release any hazardous byproducts. This is why it is the material of choice for a huge range of medical applications, including:

• Catheters and medical tubing
• Pacemaker leads and other long-term implants
• Baby bottle nipples and pacifiers

When you see a kitchen product labeled “food-grade silicone,” it means it has met stringent standards (like those from the FDA in the United States) ensuring its purity and safety for contact with food. This inherent inertness provides a level of peace of mind that is difficult to achieve with many plastics.

Verdict: For applications requiring the highest levels of safety and biocompatibility, such as medical devices and food contact products, medical-grade silicone is vastly superior to almost all plastics.

Silicone vs. Rubbers: A Clash of Elastomers

Here, the comparison is more nuanced. Both silicone and traditional rubbers (like natural rubber, EPDM, neoprene, and nitrile) are elastomers, defined by their elasticity. The choice between them often comes down to specific performance trade-offs and the environment in which the part will be used.

Source and Purity: Synthetic vs. Natural

The most fundamental difference lies in their origin. Natural rubber is harvested as latex, a sap from the Hevea brasiliensis tree. This natural origin means it contains proteins that can cause severe allergic reactions in some individuals.

Silicone is entirely synthetic, created from silica. Its controlled, high-purity manufacturing process results in a material that is hypoallergenic. This is another key reason why silicone dominates the medical field over natural rubber latex. Synthetic rubbers like EPDM and neoprene also avoid the allergy issue, but silicone’s production process generally yields a purer base polymer.

Verdict: Silicone’s synthetic purity and hypoallergenic nature give it a decisive advantage over natural rubber for any application involving skin contact or medical use.

Performance at the Extremes: High and Low Temperatures

As with plastics, silicone’s thermal stability is a key advantage over most rubbers. While some specialized synthetic rubbers have impressive temperature ranges, they rarely match the breadth of silicone.

• Natural Rubber: Becomes brittle around -50°C (-58°F) and starts to degrade above 80°C (176°F).
• Nitrile Rubber (NBR): Valued for its oil resistance, it typically operates between -40°C and 108°C (-40°F to 226°F).
• EPDM Rubber: A popular choice for outdoor seals due to good weather resistance, it handles a range of about -50°C to 150°C (-58°F to 302°F).

Silicone, with its typical range of -60°C to 230°C (-76°F to 450°F), surpasses all of them, especially on the high-temperature end. This makes silicone the automatic choice for high-temperature automotive gaskets, oven door seals, and industrial applications where other rubbers would fail.

Verdict: Silicone remains the king of temperature extremes, outperforming even the most robust specialty rubbers, particularly in high-heat environments.

Tear Strength and Abrasion Resistance: The Achilles’ Heel?

This is the one category where traditional rubbers often have a distinct advantage. Tear strength is a material’s resistance to the growth of a cut or tear under tension. Abrasion resistance is its ability to withstand wear from rubbing and friction.

Many rubber compounds, particularly natural rubber, are exceptionally tough and resilient. This is why they are used for applications like vehicle tires and conveyor belts, which face constant dynamic stress and abrasive forces.

Standard silicone grades, by comparison, can have relatively poor tear strength. It’s often easy to tear a silicone baking sheet if you start a cut with a knife. While high-performance formulations (like High Consistency Rubber or HCR silicones) have been developed to improve these properties, they still rarely match the brute toughness of materials like natural rubber or polyurethane. For a dynamic seal that is subject to rubbing or a part that needs to withstand sharp objects, a traditional rubber might be the more durable engineering choice.

Verdict: Traditional rubbers often exhibit superior tear and abrasion resistance, making them better suited for physically demanding, high-wear applications. This is silicone’s most significant performance trade-off.

Environmental Stability: Resistance to Ozone and UV

Just like with plastics, this is a major differentiator. The double bonds in the carbon backbone of many rubbers, especially natural rubber, are highly susceptible to attack by ozone and UV radiation. This attack causes the material to crack, a phenomenon you can often see on the sidewalls of old tires.

Silicone’s inorganic backbone is completely invulnerable to ozone attack and, as we’ve discussed, highly resistant to UV degradation. This, combined with its wide temperature range, makes silicone an ideal material for long-term outdoor sealing and electrical insulation, far surpassing most rubbers in environmental durability. EPDM rubber is a strong competitor in this area, but silicone generally offers a longer and more reliable service life.

Verdict: Silicone’s inherent resistance to UV and ozone gives it superior long-term environmental stability compared to most rubbers, making it the premium choice for applications requiring decades of reliable outdoor performance.

This detailed showdown reveals a clear pattern. Silicone is not a universal replacement for all plastics and rubbers, but rather a high-performance problem-solver. It excels in environments where its unique chemical stability provides an overwhelming advantage: at extreme temperatures, under UV radiation, and in contact with the human body. However, for applications demanding sheer mechanical toughness or low cost, traditional plastics and rubbers often remain the more practical choice.

We have established silicone’s superior performance in many areas, but performance isn’t the whole story. Now we must turn to the most critical questions that surfaced in our research—the questions of human health and environmental impact. Is this high-performance material truly and completely safe for our bodies, and what is its ultimate cost to the planet? The answers are more complex than you might think.

Health and Safety: Is Silicone Truly Inert?

The short answer, for the vast majority of applications, is a resounding yes. When produced to the appropriate standards (medical-grade or food-grade), silicone is one of the safest and most biocompatible materials available to us. However, the full story requires a closer look at the different grades and potential contaminants.

The Purity of Medical and Food-Grade Silicone

The key to silicone’s safety is its purity and chemical stability. Unlike plastics, which often rely on a cocktail of additives like plasticizers (e.g., BPA, phthalates) to achieve their desired properties, high-purity silicone is a much simpler system. It doesn’t need these additives to be flexible or stable. As a result, there are no endocrine-disrupting chemicals to leach into your food or baby’s mouth.

This inertness is why silicone has been trusted for decades in the most demanding medical applications imaginable. It is used for long-term implants like pacemakers, cochlear implants, and joint replacements. It is the gold standard for catheters, feeding tubes, and wound dressings. The human body shows an exceptionally low rate of immune response or rejection to medical-grade silicone, allowing it to reside in intimate contact with living tissue for years without causing harm.

When you buy a kitchen utensil made from “food-grade” silicone, it means the material has been manufactured and tested to meet stringent safety standards set by regulatory bodies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or Germany’s LFGB. These standards ensure that the silicone will not transfer any substances to food in quantities that could endanger human health.

The Question of “Fillers” and Cheaper Grades

Not all silicone is created equal. To reduce costs, some lower-quality manufacturers may use cheap “fillers” in their silicone products. These fillers, which can include substances like silica dust or various organic compounds, can compromise the material’s purity and stability. A product with excessive fillers may not have the same temperature resistance or inertness as pure silicone and could potentially leach unknown substances, especially when heated.

The Pinch Test: An At-Home Quality Check
There’s a simple, though not entirely scientific, way to check for the presence of excessive fillers in a silicone product. It’s called the “pinch test.” Take a flat surface of the silicone product (like the base of a muffin cup) and pinch it firmly while twisting. Pure silicone should not change color, regardless of how much you bend or twist it. If you see white streaks appear in the fold, it’s a strong indication that the manufacturer has used fillers. The white color is the filler material becoming visible as the polymer is stretched. While this doesn’t automatically mean the product is unsafe, it does mean it is not 100% pure silicone and may not perform as well as a high-quality product.

Verdict on Health: When purchasing silicone products for food, baby care, or medical use, always choose items from reputable brands that explicitly state they are made from 100% food-grade or medical-grade silicone. In this pure form, silicone is exceptionally safe and vastly superior to plastics in terms of chemical inertness and non-toxicity.

Environmental Impact: The Complex Life Cycle

This is where the picture becomes much more complicated. Silicone’s greatest strength—its durability—is also the source of its greatest environmental challenge. It is built to last, which means it does not easily go away.

Biodegradability: Does Silicone Break Down?

Let’s be perfectly clear: Silicone is not biodegradable. The strong silicon-oxygen bonds that make it so resistant to heat, UV, and ozone also make it resistant to the microorganisms that break down organic materials like paper, wood, or food scraps. A silicone spatula thrown into a landfill will remain a silicone spatula for an estimated 500 years or more. It will not decompose and return to the soil in any meaningful human timescale.

However, its breakdown process is different from plastic’s. While it doesn’t biodegrade, it will eventually photodegrade with prolonged exposure to sunlight, slowly breaking down into smaller pieces. Crucially, as it degrades, it is thought to return to its harmless constituent parts: silica (sand), carbon dioxide, and water. Unlike plastic, it does not break down into microplastic fragments that persist and accumulate in the food chain, carrying concentrated toxins with them. This is a significant point of differentiation, but the extremely long timescale means that disposed silicone still contributes to landfill waste for centuries.

Recycling: Possible but Problematic

Can silicone be recycled? The answer is yes, but it’s very difficult and rarely done.

Silicone is a thermoset. Unlike thermoplastic materials (like PET plastic bottles) which can be melted down and easily reformed into new products, you cannot melt and remold silicone. Once it has been cross-linked and cured, its shape is permanent.

Recycling silicone requires a specialized industrial process. The material must be ground down and then chemically broken down to recover the base siloxane polymers. These polymers can then be re-polymerized to create new silicone oil or, with further processing, new silicone rubber. This process is energy-intensive, expensive, and requires a dedicated collection stream of pure silicone waste.

The reality is that very few municipal recycling programs accept silicone. There are a small number of specialized companies that will accept silicone products for recycling (often via a mail-in program), but for the vast majority of consumers, the only disposal option is the landfill.

The Lifecycle Argument: Durability as a Form of Sustainability

Given these end-of-life challenges, how can silicone be considered an environmentally responsible choice? The argument hinges on the first “R” of sustainability: Reduce.

Silicone’s extreme durability means it enables the creation of highly reusable products that can replace hundreds or thousands of single-use disposable items.

• A single set of silicone food storage bags can replace thousands of disposable plastic sandwich bags.
• One silicone baking mat can eliminate the need for countless rolls of parchment paper or aluminum foil.
• A reusable silicone menstrual cup can prevent hundreds of tampons and pads from entering the landfill each year.

When viewed through this lens, the environmental calculus changes. The energy and resources used to create one durable silicone product may be higher than those for one disposable plastic equivalent, but its vastly longer service life means the overall environmental footprint (carbon emissions, resource consumption, and waste generation) can be significantly lower over time. The key is that the consumer must actually use the silicone product for its full, long lifespan to realize these benefits.

Verdict on Environment: Silicone is not a perfect environmental solution. Its lack of biodegradability and the practical difficulty of recycling are significant drawbacks. However, its role in creating ultra-durable, reusable alternatives to single-use plastics makes it a powerful tool for waste reduction. The most sustainable choice is to buy high-quality silicone products and use them for as long as possible.

The Final Verdict: Neither, Both, and Something More

So, after this deep dive, what is the final answer to our question? Is silicone a rubber or a plastic?

The technically correct answer is neither. It is a unique class of polymer—an inorganic elastomer—that shares properties with both but belongs to a category of its own.

The practical answer is that it often acts like a high-performance rubber, but with a level of thermal stability and purity that most rubbers and plastics can only dream of.

But the most complete answer is that silicone is a problem-solver. It is the material we turn to when plastics melt and rubbers degrade. It’s the bridge between the mechanical world of engineering and the delicate world of biology. It is a testament to human ingenuity, a synthetic material born from sand that can withstand the cold of space, the heat of an oven, and the intimacy of the human body.

Understanding silicone is about understanding trade-offs. It trades some mechanical toughness for incredible stability. It trades easy recyclability for extreme durability. By understanding these trade-offs, we can appreciate it for what it is: not just a substitute for plastic or rubber, but an essential and distinct material that makes our modern world safer, more efficient, and more resilient.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: What is the main difference between silicone and plastic?
The main difference is their chemical backbone. Plastics have a carbon-carbon backbone, making them organic polymers. Silicone has a silicon-oxygen (Si-O) backbone, making it an inorganic polymer. This difference gives silicone much higher temperature resistance, UV stability, and chemical inertness.

Q2: Is it safe to cook with silicone?
Yes, as long as it is 100% food-grade silicone from a reputable brand. Food-grade silicone is stable up to at least 230°C (450°F), which is higher than most home baking and cooking temperatures. It does not leach harmful chemicals like BPA or phthalates into food.

Q3: Can silicone go in the dishwasher, microwave, and freezer?
Yes. Silicone’s extreme temperature stability makes it safe for use in all of these appliances. It remains flexible in the freezer, is transparent to microwaves, and is easily cleaned at the high temperatures of a dishwasher.

Q4: Why is silicone more expensive than plastic?
The manufacturing process for silicone is more complex and energy-intensive than for most common plastics. It starts with processing silica (from sand) into pure silicon, which is then reacted to form siloxane polymers. The higher cost reflects this more involved synthesis and the material’s superior performance and purity.

Q5: Is silicone better for the environment than plastic?
It’s complicated. Silicone is not biodegradable and is difficult to recycle. However, it is extremely durable, allowing for the creation of reusable products that can eliminate a huge amount of single-use plastic waste. Its environmental benefit comes from reducing overall consumption and waste, not from its end-of-life disposal.

Q6: How can I tell if a product is made of pure silicone?
Perform the “pinch test.” Firmly pinch and twist a flat part of the product. If the material turns white, it likely contains fillers. If it retains its original color, it is likely made of 100% pure silicone.

References

1. American Chemical Society (ACS) – Provides extensive articles on polymer chemistry, including the fundamental differences between organic (plastics) and inorganic (silicone) polymers.
2. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – The FDA’s Code of Federal Regulations, specifically Title 21, outlines the requirements for substances, including silicone elastomers, to be considered “food safe.”
3. ISO 10993 Standards – This is the international standard for the biological evaluation of medical devices, which includes rigorous testing protocols for materials like medical-grade silicone to ensure biocompatibility.
4. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) – Publishes research on the biocompatibility and long-term stability of silicone in medical implants.

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