Roundup® Exposed: The Chemical Cocktail Behind Glyphosate’s Mask

Roundup® is marketed as something simple: a weedkiller with glyphosate as the star ingredient.

But that’s only half the story.

Behind the brand name lies a carefully guarded chemical recipe — glyphosate plus a mix of surfactants, solvents, stabilizers, and so-called “inert” ingredients. Some are designed to make glyphosate work better by pushing it deep into plant tissues. Others are there to keep the liquid stable on the shelf. And some? We don’t even get to know, because they’re hidden behind the label “trade secrets.”

What we really get isn’t a pure chemical but a cocktail — and cocktails rarely act like their ingredients in isolation. In fact, decades of independent research suggest these mixtures can be far more toxic than glyphosate by itself — for people, wildlife, and ecosystems.

So what’s actually in Roundup®? Where do these hidden additives come from — and why do regulators pretend they don’t matter? Time to peel back the label.

The “Official” Story

Search for information on Roundup® and one word dominates: glyphosate. That’s the molecule Monsanto built its empire on, and it’s the one regulators continue to focus on today.

The official description is neat and simple: glyphosate is an herbicide that blocks the shikimate pathway, a metabolic process plants use to make certain amino acids. Because humans don’t have this pathway, regulators repeat the line that glyphosate must be ‘safe.’ That one line has been repeated in countless fact sheets, press releases, and government reviews.

On the label, everything else in the bottle is relegated to a vague phrase: “other ingredients.” Inert. Trade secret. Proprietary blend. These terms sound boring, even reassuring — as if these extras are just fillers with no role or consequence.

And that’s exactly the story the public is meant to absorb: Roundup equals glyphosate, glyphosate equals safe. Simple, right?

Except it isn’t true. Real-world Roundup is anything but simple. Those ‘other ingredients’ aren’t bystanders — they’re active players, often more toxic than glyphosate itself.

The Reality of Roundup’s Recipe

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Roundup® is not just glyphosate in water. It’s a carefully engineered chemical cocktail. It’s a carefully engineered mixture, and each “extra” ingredient is chosen for a reason.

Surfactants (like POEA – polyethoxylated tallow amine):
Think of them like industrial dish soap: they strip away plant defenses so glyphosate can slip inside. But they don’t just stop at plants — POEA and similar surfactants are well-documented to be toxic to human cells, aquatic life, and beneficial soil organisms. Some versions have been restricted in Europe because of this.

Solvents and stabilizers:
Glyphosate salts dissolve more easily in water when mixed with chemical stabilizers and solvents. These aren’t listed on the bottle, but patents and leaked regulatory files show compounds like petroleum distillates and polyoxyethylene alkylamines making regular appearances. They help glyphosate mix, spread, and persist.

Preservatives and anti-foaming agents:
To make the product look clean, shelf-stable, and easy to apply, Roundup often contains preservatives, biocides, and chemicals that suppress foaming in the spray tank. Each one sounds minor, but together they shape how the herbicide behaves once sprayed into the real world.

Undisclosed co-formulants:
Here’s where things get murky. Many Roundup formulations contain unnamed “inerts” under the guise of trade secrecy. Independent lab tests have detected compounds capable of endocrine disruption, DNA damage, or synergistic amplification of glyphosate’s effects — all without ever being listed on the safety data sheet.

The result? A chemical cocktail designed for maximum weed-killing efficiency, not for minimum human or environmental harm. And unlike glyphosate itself, these co-formulants are rarely tested in regulatory safety assessments.

So why do regulators still test glyphosate alone — while the real-world product, the one we’re actually exposed to, remains a black box?

Surfactants – The Cell Breakers

If glyphosate is the bullet, surfactants are the gunpowder — the force that makes it deadly. These additives don’t kill weeds on their own, but they make glyphosate far more effective by forcing it deep into plant tissues.

In Roundup®, the most infamous of these is POEA (polyethoxylated tallow amine), a detergent-like chemical derived from animal fat and petroleum by-products. Although banned from glyphosate products in the EU since 2016 due to its toxicity, POEA is still used in many Roundup® formulations sold in countries like New Zealand and the U.S

How they work
Surfactants lower the surface tension of liquids — in plain language, they make water “wetter.” When sprayed, instead of beading up and rolling off a waxy leaf, glyphosate sticks, spreads, and penetrates. Surfactants also punch microscopic holes in cell membranes, acting like battering rams that help glyphosate (and any other chemical in the mix) slip into living tissues.

The toxic twist
Here’s the catch: those same membrane-busting properties don’t stop at weeds. Research shows POEA and related surfactants are highly toxic to human cells, even more so than glyphosate itself. In lab studies, they’ve been found to:

• Rip apart human placental, embryonic, and umbilical cells — literally causing them to burst.
• Act as aquatic poisons, killing fish and amphibians at concentrations far below agricultural use.
• Amplify glyphosate’s impact, making the mixture more harmful than glyphosate alone.

So while regulators focus almost exclusively on glyphosate, the real cell-destroying action often comes from these supposedly “inert” ingredients. In fact, that’s why Europe has already moved to restrict or ban some of the worst offenders like POEA — precisely because they were shown to be too dangerous.

Why they matter
Without surfactants, Roundup would be far less effective — glyphosate would just sit on the surface, slow to act. But with them, glyphosate becomes a fast-absorbing, system-wide poison. In other words, surfactants aren’t bystanders at all; they’re the enablers. With them, Roundup isn’t just a weedkiller — it’s a cellular wrecking ball.”

Solvents and Chemical Stabilizers – The Carriers

If surfactants are the enablers, solvents and stabilizers are the delivery crew — making sure glyphosate shows up ready to do its damage. They don’t grab headlines like glyphosate, but without them Roundup® wouldn’t even work as a commercial product.

What they do

• Dissolve and carry glyphosate: Glyphosate is a salt and doesn’t dissolve easily in plain water. Solvents like petroleum distillates help it mix smoothly and remain stable in liquid form.
• Keep the mixture shelf-stable: Stabilizers prevent glyphosate and its companions from breaking down in storage.
• Improve adhesion and spread: Polyoxyethylene alkylamines (POEAs, cousins to the surfactants already mentioned) help glyphosate cling to surfaces and penetrate better.

Where they come from

• Petroleum distillates are by-products of crude oil refining — think kerosene-like hydrocarbons.
• Polyoxyethylene compounds are synthetic chemicals derived from ethylene oxide (a petrochemical) linked to fatty acids, often from animal or plant fats.

The hidden risks
These “background” chemicals are far from inert:

• Petroleum distillates can irritate lungs, skin, and eyes; some are classified as potential carcinogens. They’re volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which means they contribute to air pollution and smog.
• Polyoxyethylene alkylamines are highly toxic to aquatic life. They suffocate fish by wrecking gill function and derail amphibian development — impacts far beyond those of glyphosate alone.
• When combined with glyphosate, they can act synergistically, opening the door for glyphosate to penetrate tissues more effectively — in plants, yes, but also potentially in human skin.

Why they matter
Roundup isn’t just glyphosate in water. It’s glyphosate dissolved, stabilized, and turbocharged with a chemical support team designed to keep it potent from factory to field. And while these “carriers” are dismissed as irrelevant in regulatory assessments, they’re part of what workers, farmers, and communities actually breathe, touch, and ingest.

In short: solvents and stabilizers don’t kill weeds — they weaponize glyphosate, changing how it moves, lingers, and infiltrates our bodies and ecosystems.

Preservatives, Biocides, and Anti-Foaming Agents – The Add-Ons

Roundup® isn’t glyphosate with a sidekick or two. It’s a full-blown chemical cocktail, engineered for shelf life, spraying convenience, and marketability. To get there, manufacturers slip in a handful of “add-ons” that rarely make it onto the product label — but they’re there, doing their work in the background.

Preservatives
These are chemicals added to prevent microbial growth and spoilage during storage. After all, glyphosate formulations can sit in plastic jugs for years. Preservatives keep the mix from separating, molding, or rotting. But they don’t just stop mold in a jug — they kill microbes, period. And once they spill into soil, waterways, or even our own gut, they target the very microbial life that ecosystems and human health depend on.

Biocides
Ironically, Roundup already is a biocide (it kills life), but manufacturers often add secondary microbial suppressants. Some of these are quaternary ammonium compounds — the same chemical family used in disinfectant sprays. They may keep tanks and hoses clean, but they don’t just keep spray tanks clean. They also disrupt microbial membranes — raising alarms about soil fertility, gut microbiomes, and the unseen ripple effects of chronic exposure.

Anti-Foaming Agents
These sound trivial, but they’re a chemical layer worth noting. Spraying systems don’t handle foam well, so silicone-based compounds or petroleum derivatives are added to keep the mix smooth. While they’re often described as “inert,” studies suggest that certain antifoam agents can act as respiratory irritants when inhaled in fine droplets. Farmers exposed to drift or spray clouds are likely inhaling not only glyphosate but also these additives.

Why they matter
Each of these components is marketed as a mere technical aid — there to “improve performance” or “make application easier.” Yet they represent additional layers of chemical exposure for farmers, communities, and ecosystems. On their own they may seem minor. Combined, they layer extra toxicity into Roundup® that regulators completely ignore — because on paper, glyphosate is the only ingredient that “counts.

Endocrine Disruption, DNA Damage & Synergy — the Hidden Health Risks

Look at Roundup® as the full recipe, not just glyphosate, and three red flags keep appearing:

1. hormone signals scrambled,
2. DNA under stress,
3. and mixtures proving more toxic than glyphosate alone.

Endocrine disruption (the hormone scramble)

• Many co-formulants marketed as “inert” behave like endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).
• In human cell models, formulation ingredients (especially surfactants) have been shown to interfere with estrogen and androgen receptors, scramble how we make sex hormones, and throw thyroid signals off balance..
• What makes this especially concerning: EDC effects often appear at very low doses and follow non-linear patterns (a little can do more than a lot), with pregnancy and puberty as especially vulnerable windows.

DNA damage & oxidative stress (the genotoxic signal)

• Roundup-type mixtures commonly trigger oxidative stress (reactive oxygen species), which damages lipids, proteins, and DNA.
• Lab assays frequently detect strand breaks and AP sites (gaps in DNA), along with markers like 8-oxo-dG.
• Mitochondria — the cell’s power plants — are prime targets. Knock them offline and cells spiral into energy crisis, inflammation, and the slow burn that fuels chronic disease.

Synergy (why the cocktail hits harder)

• Surfactants (e.g., POEA) make membranes leaky, so more glyphosate (and everything else in the mix) gets inside.
• Solvents and stabilizers keep the active ingredients dissolved, spread evenly, and persisting longer—raising internal dose without raising the label rate.
• Synergy takes over: the combined effect is greater than the sum of the parts. That’s why formulations can show toxicity below glyphosate-only ‘safe’ thresholds.

Why regulation misses this

• Safety tests still focus on the declared “active ingredient,” not the full product people actually use.
• Co-formulants are shielded as inert or trade secret, so they’re rarely tested for endocrine or genotoxic effects.
• Formula changes over time (and between markets) mean an approval can rest on an old recipe that no longer matches what’s on shelves.

What this means in the real world

• Workers and nearby communities aren’t exposed to a single molecule; they’re exposed to a membrane-penetrating, solvent-carried cocktail.
• Aquatic life is especially vulnerable to surfactants and solvent blends.
• Low-dose, long-term exposures—exactly the kind that define everyday life—are where endocrine and genotoxic effects are most likely to matter.

How Roundup Really Works (and why that amplifies risk)

Roundup® isn’t just “spray and the plant dies.” It’s a step-by-step delivery system designed to drive chemicals deep into living tissue, move them around inside the plant, and keep them working long enough to finish the job. When you follow those steps, you can also see exactly where human and environmental risks get amplified.

Step 1 — Spray physics (make every droplet bite).
Surfactants lower surface tension so droplets don’t bead and roll off; they spread, stick, and wet the leaf. Many modern mixes also produce finer droplets, which improve leaf coverage—but fine droplets drift farther and can be inhaled more easily. That’s a performance win and an exposure win at the same time.

Step 2 — Breach the barrier (open the door).
Leaves are armored by a waxy cuticle. Surfactants act like molecular crowbars, disrupting that barrier so glyphosate (and anything else riding with it) slips in. The same membrane-disrupting trick that helps on a leaf can also make skin and lung tissue more permeable to aerosols and residues.

Step 3 — Chemistry that carries (salt forms & solvents).
Glyphosate is delivered as salts (e.g., isopropylamine, potassium, ammonium). Solvents/stabilizers keep those salts dissolved and mobile, helping the dose stay available on the leaf long enough to penetrate. The formulation’s pH and solvent system are tuned for faster uptake—good for weeds; not great for off-target biology.

Step 4 — Systemic transport (move it to the growth engines).
Once inside, glyphosate moves through the plant’s phloem to actively growing tissues (meristems, roots, new leaves). That’s why whole plants die. The same surfactant/solvent mix that accelerates entry can increase the internal loading that reaches those targets.

Step 5 — Cellular target (turn off the tap).
Glyphosate blocks an enzyme called EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) in the shikimate pathway — the plant’s way of making essential aromatic amino acids. But this is where “glyphosate alone” vs. “formulation” really matters: co-formulants can potentiate glyphosate’s effect, and some bring their own endocrine or genotoxic signals to the party.

Step 6 — Soil, water, and residue reality (not just plants).

• Pre-harvest use bakes residues into food at harvest. Heating and processing don’t make that risk vanish; AMPA (the main breakdown product) shows up too.
• In soils, co-formulants and glyphosate’s chelating tricks unsettle the rhizosphere — starving plants of key nutrients and unbalancing the microbial networks crops rely on.
• Water & aquatic life: surfactants/solvents that help glyphosate cross a leaf can also hammer gills and embryos; mixtures are often far more toxic to aquatic species than glyphosate alone.
• Air & drift: finer droplets and wetter sprays boost field performance—while extending drift range and increasing the chance of dermal and inhalation exposure for workers and neighbors.

Why this delivery design amplifies risk
Roundup is engineered to increase bioavailability: more contact, more entry, more movement, more persistence long enough to kill the plant. Each of those optimizations—lower surface tension, membrane disruption, solvent carry, droplet fineness—has a mirror image on the human/environment side: greater absorption, deeper penetration, wider drift, stronger synergy. The result isn’t just weed control. It’s a chemical delivery system fine-tuned to penetrate plants — and along the way, people, animals, and ecosystems too.

What This Means for New Zealand

From farms to footpaths
Roundup® isn’t confined to industrial agriculture — it’s everywhere. Across New Zealand it’s sprayed on farms, orchards, vineyards, road verges, school fields, parks, and home gardens. Anywhere “weeds” are unwanted, the cocktail goes to work: surfactants breaching barriers, solvents driving glyphosate deeper, droplets drifting in the wind.

Pre-harvest use and residues in food
In arable farming, Roundup is used for crop desiccation — sprayed on wheat, barley, oats, peas, and other crops just before harvest to dry and even out ripening. The timing means residues are literally built into the harvest. Glyphosate and its breakdown product AMPA show up in flour, bread, breakfast cereals, and animal feed.

But here’s the catch: New Zealand testing looks almost exclusively for glyphosate and AMPA. The rest of the formulation — the surfactants, solvents, and stabilizers — goes completely under the radar.

Roadside and community exposure
Councils routinely spray Roundup along verges, walkways, playgrounds, and parks — often without signage or public notice. The same “spray physics” that make Roundup stick to leaves also make drift inevitable. On a windy day (in much of NZ, that’s most days), bystanders, children, pets, and nearby gardens all get a dose.

Forestry and fire risk
In plantation forestry, glyphosate formulations are aerial-sprayed to suppress undergrowth before and after pine planting. The result isn’t selective: surfactants ensure that shrubs and underbrush desiccate quickly, leaving behind a carpet of dry tinder. Add drought and wind, and you’ve engineered a fire hazard into the landscape itself.

Why the New Zealand regulatory blind spot matters more here
New Zealand has:

• Some of the highest per-capita glyphosate use in the world.
• Heavy reliance on pre-harvest desiccation in cereals.
• Widespread community-level spraying in public spaces.
• Forestry dependence on aerial applications that reshape ecosystems.

And yet, regulators only measure glyphosate and AMPA. The toxic cocktail that makes Roundup® effective — surfactants, solvents, stabilizers, preservatives — remains unmonitored, untested, and unregulated.

That blind spot isn’t just technical. It leaves us asking: could this help explain why New Zealand shows world-leading rates of diseases linked in research to glyphosate formulations — from gut inflammation and food allergies to certain cancers and lymphomas?

The Cocktail We Can’t Ignore

Roundup® has always been sold as glyphosate in a bottle — one molecule, one simple story. But what actually gets sprayed on our food, our roadsides, our forests, and our parks is a chemical cocktail, engineered to penetrate living systems, to linger, to amplify. Glyphosate may be the headline, but it’s the surfactants, solvents, stabilizers, and preservatives that turn the product into something far more potent — and far more dangerous.

In New Zealand, this blind spot matters. Our regulators test for glyphosate and its by-product AMPA, but not for the very co-formulants that scientists show can disrupt hormones, damage DNA, inflame guts, and trigger immune reactions at doses far below regulatory “safety” limits. So why do we still allow spraying across farms, forests, council land, and even playgrounds — while relying on tests that look in the wrong place?

Roundup isn’t just a weed killer. It’s a system designed to carry toxins deeper into the living world — into soils, waterways, food chains, and bodies. Until regulators face that reality, every New Zealander remains part of an unconsented chemical experiment.

The real danger isn’t the weedkiller on the shelf, but the illusion of safety that comes with it.

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Further Reading on Glyphosate’s Hidden Risks

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve already seen that Roundup® isn’t just glyphosate in a bottle — it’s a chemical cocktail with far-reaching consequences. And this article only scratches the surface. If you want to explore the bigger picture, here are some of the deeper dives we’ve published

Glyphosate and Gluten Sensitivity
How glyphosate may be fuelling gluten intolerance and celiac-like symptoms.

Missing Microbes: Infant Gut & Glyphosate
Why babies are especially vulnerable to microbiome disruption.

Mitochondria Damage from Glyphosate
Evidence that glyphosate-based herbicides trigger cellular energy crises.

Prenatal Exposure & Neurodevelopment
Links between glyphosate exposure in pregnancy and child brain development.

Glyphosate and Lymphoma
Why lymphoma rates matter in glyphosate debates.

Glyphosate, DNA Damage & Oxidative Stress
How glyphosate formulations attack cells at the genetic level.

Epigenetics & Fertility Risks
How glyphosate exposure could pass health risks to future generations.

Neurological Health & Glyphosate
Exploring ties between glyphosate exposure and neurological disease.

Hormone Disruption from Glyphosate
Endocrine-disrupting effects regulators overlook.

Glyphosate’s Impact on the Microbiome
How gut microbes pay the price for “safe” weedkiller use.

The pattern is hard to ignore: wherever glyphosate goes, disruption follows. Keep following the threads — because only when we see the full picture can we begin to challenge the illusion of safety that surrounds this chemical.

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