Guide
Comedogenic Ingredients: The Complete List (84 Names, Rated 0-5)
The full comedogenic ingredients list: every ingredient rated 3 or higher on published 0-5 scales, grouped by band, with what the ratings mean and how to read them honestly.
Most "comedogenic ingredients" lists going around skincare forums are either three items long or copied from a decade-old Tumblr post with the sources stripped out. This is the complete version: 84 ingredients rated 3 or higher on published comedogenic scales, pulled from the same database that powers our free pore clogging checker — every entry traceable to the Fulton rabbit-ear assay, classic practitioner pore-clogging lists, or both.
A warning before the tables: a rating is a property of an ingredient in isolation, not a verdict on a product. How an ingredient behaves on your face depends on its concentration, what it is mixed with, whether the product rinses off, and how your particular follicles behave. The tables give you the suspicion; the rest of this article gives you the judgment.
How comedogenic ratings actually work
The 0-5 scale came out of the Fulton rabbit-ear assay (1989), which applied individual ingredients to the inside of rabbit ears — skin whose follicles clog far more readily than human facial skin — and counted the comedones that formed. 0 means no clogging observed; 5 means heavy clogging. Because human skin behaves differently, acne clinics and dermatologists also maintained "practitioner lists" of ingredients repeatedly implicated in real patients' breakouts.
Where the two sources disagree, our database shows a range such as 3-4 instead of hiding the uncertainty behind one confident number. Every rating in the checker cites its source, and our methodology page explains the full pipeline — including the famous landmines, like acetylated lanolin alcohol (4/5) versus acetylated lanolin itself, which the assay actually found non-comedogenic.
The 5/5 band: extremely comedogenic
These fifteen ingredients are rated 5 out of 5. If one sits high in the ingredient list of a leave-on product and you are breaking out without an obvious cause, this is where a sensible elimination starts:
| Ingredient | Rating |
|---|---|
| A13-00356 | 5 |
| Coal Tar | 5 |
| Isocetyl Stearate | 5 |
| Isopropyl Isostearate | 5 |
| Isopropyl Myristate | 5 |
| Isostearic Acid | 5 |
| Laureth-4 | 5 |
| Myreth-3 Myristate | 5 |
| Myristyl Myristate | 5 |
| Octyl Stearate | 5 |
| Oleic Acid | 5 |
| Oleth-3 | 5 |
| Potassium Chloride | 5 |
| Sodium Lauryl Sulfate | 5 |
| Wheat Germ Oil | 5 |
Two entries on this band surprise people. Isopropyl myristate is a silky slip agent used in countless "light" moisturizers and makeup removers — exactly the products marketed to oily skin. It is one of the most reliably pore-clogging ingredients ever tested. Potassium chloride sounds like nothing — it is a simple salt used as a thickener in mascaras and liquid liners — yet it sits at 5 on the practitioner lists, which is one reason "my eyeliner is breaking out my lash line" is a real complaint and not an excuse.
The 4/5 band: highly comedogenic
Twenty-four ingredients carry a 4 (or a 4-5 range where sources disagree):
| Ingredient | Rating |
|---|---|
| Coconut Oil | 4-5 |
| Flaxseed Oil | 4-5 |
| Lanolin Acid | 4-5 |
| Acetylated Lanolin Alcohol | 4 |
| Cetyl Acetate | 4 |
| Cocoa Butter | 4 |
| Cupuacu Butter | 2-4 |
| Disodium Oleamido PEG-2 Sulfosuccinate | 4 |
| Ethylhexyl Palmitate | 4 |
| Glyceryl-3 Diisostearate | 4 |
| Isocetyl Alcohol | 4 |
| Isopropyl Linoleate | 4 |
| Isopropyl Palmitate | 4 |
| Isostearyl Isostearate | 4 |
| Lauric Acid | 4 |
| Myristyl Lactate | 4 |
| Oleyl Alcohol | 4 |
| PEG-16 Lanolin | 4 |
| Polyglyceryl-3 Diisostearate | 4 |
| PPG-5 Ceteth-10 Phosphate | 4 |
| Sodium Alginate | 4 |
| Steareth-10 | 4 |
| Stearyl Heptanoate | 4 |
| Xylene | 4 |
This band is where "natural" collides with "acne-safe". Coconut oil, cocoa butter and flaxseed oil are beloved, natural, and highly comedogenic — the saturated fatty acids that make them rich and occlusive are the same property that plugs follicles. If you broke out from a natural body butter, this band is usually why. We covered the alcohol-family members of this table (oleyl alcohol and friends) separately in the fatty alcohols guide, because they are wrongly feared far more often than they are actually guilty.
The 3/5 band: moderately comedogenic
Forty-five ingredients sit at 3 — including several ranges (2-3, 1-3) where one source says moderate and another says lower:
| Ingredient | Rating |
|---|---|
| Argan Oil | 3 |
| Avocado Oil | 2-3 |
| Butyl Stearate | 3 |
| Canola Oil | 3 |
| Colloidal Sulfur | 3 |
| Corn Oil | 3 |
| Cottonseed Oil | 3 |
| D&C Red #17 | 3 |
| D&C Red #3 | 3 |
| D&C Red #30 | 3 |
| D&C Red #36 | 3 |
| Decyl Oleate | 3 |
| Dioctyl Malate | 3 |
| Dioctyl Succinate | 3 |
| Ethoxylated Lanolin | 3 |
| Evening Primrose Oil | 3 |
| Glyceryl Stearate SE | 3 |
| Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil | 3 |
| Hypnea Musciformis | 3 |
| Isodecyl Oleate | 2-3 |
| Isostearyl Neopentanoate | 3 |
| Laureth-23 | 3 |
| Mink Oil | 3 |
| Myristic Acid | 3 |
| Oleth-5 | 3 |
| PEG-200 Dilaurate | 3 |
| PEG-8 Stearate | 3 |
| Palmitic Acid | 2-3 |
| Plankton Extract | 3 |
| PPG-10 Cetyl Ether | 3 |
| PPG-2 Myristyl Ether Propionate | 3 |
| Propylene Glycol Monostearate | 0-3 |
| Retinyl Palmitate | 1-3 |
| Sesame Oil | 1-3 |
| Shark Liver Oil | 3 |
| Sodium Laureth Sulfate | 3 |
| Sorbitan Oleate | 3 |
| Soybean Oil | 3 |
| Stearic Acid | 2-3 |
| Sulfated Castor Oil | 3 |
| Sulfated Jojoba Oil | 3 |
| TEA Stearate | 3 |
| Tocopherol | 0-3 |
| Water-Soluble Sulfur | 3 |
| Wheat Germ Glycerides | 3 |
This band needs the most honest reading. At 3, concentration and context decide everything: stearic and palmitic acid appear in almost every cleansing bar and many creams, usually fine at a few percent in a rinsed product, riskier in a heavy leave-on. Tocopherol (vitamin E) — a beloved antioxidant — touches 3 on one practitioner list at most, and appears at tiny antioxidant doses in thousands of products nobody would blame for a breakout. And the D&C Red pigments are classic hidden triggers in lipsticks and blushes, which is why "my blush breaks out my cheeks" shows up in every acne forum.
What a 3-5 rating actually means on a real label
Reading the tables correctly takes three rules:
- Position matters. Ingredient lists run in descending order of concentration. Ethylhexyl palmitate first five slots is a texture foundation; slot 40 is a trace. The checker shows you the rating sorted alongside the risk, so you can weight position accordingly.
- Rinse-off changes the math. Sodium lauryl sulfate rates 5/5, and it is also one of the most used cleanser surfactants on earth. It touches your skin for sixty seconds and leaves. The 5 belongs to its raw ingredient profile, not to every product that contains it.
- Band, not decimal. The difference between a 4 and a 5 matters less than the difference between a 4 and a 1. Treat 3-5 as "the suspicious half of the list", and audit your leave-on products from the top down.
The other side of the list: what does not belong on fear lists
The full database holds 287 ingredients, and most of them are calm. Glycerin, the most common skincare ingredient in existence, is 0. Highly refined mineral oil — unfairly demonized for decades — sits at 0-2. Squalane is 1, hyaluronic acid 0, niacinamide 0, panthenol 0, allantoin 0. Cetyl alcohol and the other fatty alcohols run 1-2 despite their scary name.
If you have eliminated everything in the tables above and are still congested, the answer is almost never "cut more ingredients" — it is usually concentration, product texture, or something that is not comedogenicity at all (purging from actives, friction, fungal folliculitis). The fastest way to see the whole picture is to paste your actual products into the pore clogging checker and look at what sorts to the top — you will often find one 4-5 ester carrying an otherwise clean formula.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most comedogenic ingredient?
On the practitioner lists, a tie at the top: isopropyl myristate and its isostearate/myristate ester cousins, coconut oil, wheat germ oil, sodium lauryl sulfate and oleic acid all sit at 5/5. If one "most infamous" must be named, it is isopropyl myristate — cheap, silky, everywhere, and reliably comedogenic in both assay and clinic experience.
Is a rating of 3 comedogenic?
Moderately. A 3 means clogging was observed under assay conditions but not heavy clogging. In a rinsed product, or low in the ingredient list, a 3 is usually a non-issue. In a rich leave-on at the top of the list — a butter-based body cream, a balm — a 3 deserves the same suspicion a 4 gets.
Why do comedogenic lists disagree with each other?
Because they compress two different kinds of evidence: the Fulton rabbit-ear assay (controlled, but on rabbit skin at high concentrations) and practitioner lists (real patients, but observational and confounded by formulas). Sources also test different grades of the same ingredient — refined versus unrefined oils can differ. That is why we print ranges and cite the source on every rating instead of pretending one number exists.
Does rinsing off a highly comedogenic ingredient make it safe?
Mostly, yes — contact time is a huge variable. A 5/5 surfactant in a sixty-second cleanser is a different exposure than a 5/5 ester in an eight-hour night cream. Residue is the exception: cleansing balms and oil cleansers are designed to leave an emollient film behind, so a coconut-oil-based balm still matters even though you rinse it.
Are natural oils less comedogenic than synthetic ones?
No — the opposite pattern shows up in the data. The top bands are full of plant oils and butters (coconut, wheat germ, flaxseed, cocoa), while many synthetic esters and silicones run 0-1. "Natural" describes sourcing, not follicle behavior. Judge every ingredient by its rating, not its marketing.
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