Here’s How to Tell if Your Skin-Care Products Are Actually Noncomedogenic
Cosmetics and skin-care products are typically supposed to make you feel confident in your skin, but anyone who has acne knows that the wrong formulation can aggravate—or even cause—the breakouts you’re trying to control.
If you’ve complained about this to anyone who will listen, you may have gotten the suggestion to stick with “noncomedogenic” products. But what exactly does that mean, if anything at all? And is there any way to tell if the product you’re using is truly “noncomedogenic”? It turns out, this is a little more confusing than you might realize.
What does "noncomedogenic" even mean?
“[In medical terms,] a ‘comedo’ or ‘comedone’ ... is the earliest form of acne,” Shilpi Khetarpal, M.D., a dermatologist at Cleveland Clinic, tells SELF. “It’s basically a clogged pore.” So, if a cosmetic or ingredient is comedogenic, that means that it has a propensity to clog pores and potentially lead to acne. And, therefore, something noncomedogenic is a product or ingredient that is less likely to clog your pores.
The concept of comedogenicity—the degree to which an ingredient is comedogenic—arose at the same time as the concept of acne cosmetica, Dr. Khetarpal explains, which was a big concern in the 70s and 80s. Acne cosmetica is exactly what it sounds like: acne caused by cosmetics. The theory went that people who were already prone to acne for other reasons might be clogging their pores with makeup, creams, or lotions, which then turned into full-blown breakouts. So, in an attempt to figure out if that was true, scientists developed ways to measure how many comedones a particular ingredient or formulation was likely to cause.
The earliest comedogenicity experiments used rabbit ears. “The rabbit ear is much more sensitive to formation of comedones as opposed to human skin,” Olga Bunimovich, M.D., a dermatologist at UPMC, tells SELF, “[so] if [something] is noncomedogenic in [the rabbit ear model], the likelihood of it being comedogenic in humans is much lower.” So, using this test allows researchers to err on the side of caution when testing for comedogenicity.
The results from rabbit ear assays (REAs) are still considered among the best and most reliable that we have, even 30 years later. But some ingredients have also been tested on human skin and there is the obvious animal testing controversy inherent in this kind of measurement.
Nevertheless, these types of experiments gave us the “comedogenicity scale” you may have seen referenced on skin-care blogs. It’s usually presented as a table that assigns common skin-care ingredients a number from 0-3 or 0-5. The higher the number, the more likely that ingredient is to clog pores; anything rated a 0, 1, or 2 is generally considered “noncomedogenic.” So if you avoid anything higher than 2, you won’t break out. Simple, right?
Nope! It’s nearly impossible to look at a single product’s ingredients list and determine whether or not it will cause you to break out. Here’s why:
There is no single definition of "noncomedogenic."
The history of comedogenicity studies is long and complex. For our purposes, the important thing to know is that comedogenicity has been assessed in about a dozen different ways, all of which differ from each other to varying degrees.
This isn’t just about the human model versus the rabbit ear model either: Each study has its own way of counting comedones and, more importantly, assigning ratings. Some rabbit ear studies removed tissue samples and examined them under a microscope so they could include every single clogged pore in their model. In others, researchers only counted lesions visible to the naked eye.
And the familiar 0-5 rating scale isn’t standardized, either. One 2006 study on human skin considered anything below a 50% increase in comedones as noncomedogenic rather than using the numbered scale at all.
In the end, Dr. Bunimovich explains, there are no consistent criteria for evaluating comedogenicity: “It’s qualitative, not quantitative,” she says.
This isn’t to say that comedogenicity ratings are inherently bunk; strongly comedogenic ingredients (such as isopropyl myristate, isopropyl palmitate, ethylhexyl palmitate, and acetylated lanolin) can absolutely cause breakouts in acne-prone skin if they're present at high enough concentrations. Just remember that those handy little numbers are still based on qualitative data, so there’s room for error—particularly at the low end of the scale, meaning that you may still have issues with something that appears to be noncomedogenic.
Here's what a comedogenicity ranking can and can't tell you.
Comedogenicity ratings are inherently bunk; strongly comedogenic ingredients (such as isopropyl myristate, isopropyl palmitate, ethylhexyl palmitate, and acetylated lanolin) can absolutely cause breakouts in acne-prone skin if they're present at high enough concentrations. Just remember that those handy little numbers are still based on qualitative data, so there’s room for error—particularly at the low end of the scale, meaning that you may still have issues with something that appears to be noncomedogenic.
But just knowing that a certain ingredient is comedogenic doesn’t always tell you if a product is. That's because comedogenicity ratings often don’t take into account the amount of the ingredient present or the presence of other (possibly comedogenic) ingredients.
For example, for a landmark 1984 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, researchers tested loads of common cosmetics ingredients, all of which were either applied full-strength or diluted to 10 percent before application. The problem with that, Dr. Bunimovich explains, is that “the strength of a product is really important … A compound that's comedogenic [in high concentrations], is most likely not going to be comedogenic [in low concentrations].”
So, testing the ingredients at levels that aren’t realistic to the way you might find them in actual products makes it hard to really interpret comedogenicity ratings. For instance, full-strength isopropyl myristate and 10 percent D&C Red No. 27 both rate a 5 on one comedogenicity scale, but you won’t find anything near those levels in cosmetic formulations.
Unfortunately, you can’t know exactly how much of a certain inactive ingredient a given product contains, but you can get a rough guesstimate. Since ingredient lists must be listed from highest to lowest concentrations, Dr. Bunimovich recommends focusing on those: “If it's not within the first seven ingredients, then it's most likely not going to be a problem,” she says.
So, what does it mean if a product is labeled "noncomedogenic"?
Honestly, not a whole lot. In fact, an FDA spokesperson tells SELF that “there are no federal definitions or FDA cosmetic regulations specific to the use of the term ‘noncomedogenic’ on labels for cosmetics.” Furthermore, an ingredient’s noncomedogenic status is not determined by some FDA database but rather the results from one (or more) of the aforementioned comedogenicity studies.
So, just because a product claims to be noncomedogenic doesn’t mean that it’s totally free of ingredients that might cause you to break out. In the end, the decision to slap a “noncomedogenic” label on a product is entirely up to the discretion of cosmetics companies, which are on the honor system to use the term appropriately.
So, apart from avoiding products that have comedogenic ingredients (like isopropyl myristate) high on the ingredients lists, what can you do to ensure that you’re getting a product that won’t clog your pores? Dr. Khetarpal recommends looking for skin-care products that claim to be both oil-free and noncomedogenic, and sticking to powder makeup rather than liquids if possible.
If you’re unsure about a new product, you can always do a test: “Instead of buying a new product and slathering it all over your face,” Dr. Khetarpal says, “put a small amount along your jawline or behind the ear, give it a day or two, and see how your skin does.”
And, as always, the best resource for your in-depth questions about acne-friendly skin care is a board-certified dermatologist.
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Originally Appeared on Self
