Despite receiving unmerited bad press in recent years, the year-over-year use of ’cones’ (polydimethylsiloxane and its derivatives) in personal care continues to greatly exceed GDP growth. The primary drivers for silicone’s continued persistence, especially in high end formulations, are end product performance and flexibility in a variety of formulations. No other class of materials can match the bio-inertness, stability, touch characteristics and near infinitely tunable properties of silicones. Pro-foaming to defoaming, high to low friction, water soluble to oil soluble, shine to matte surface effect – these properties are all easily in reach when it comes to customizing cosmetic formulations with silicones. Here we will specifically review hybrid organic-silicone compatibilizers for active delivery, innovative PEG-free silicone emulsions, a new class of sugar-PDMS molecules and naturally-derived carrier combinations as a possible proxy for the difficult-to-substitute cyclic silicones.