Porecelain

Flawless skin starts with the fine print.

Acetylated Lanolin Alcohol

Acetylated lanolin alcohol is rated Clogging — and unlike the rest of the lanolin family, its comedogenic 4 is not the misattribution the family's other numbers are: two independent rabbit-ear assays, six years apart, scored materials sold under this exact name in the positive band. What neither established is that the isolated alcohol was tested free of the cetyl acetate additive the grading paper actually blamed — and neither assay touched a human face.

Clogging Low confidence Legacy score 4 on a 0-5 scale · Fulton 1989 · low reliability

Pore-clogging undiluted; the lanolin material the positive score really belongs to.

What it is

Lanolin, fractionated and then acetylated — and the fractionation is the whole distinction. Lanolin is first split into its fatty-alcohol and fatty-acid components; the alcohol fraction is then reacted with acetic acid, with a small amount of alkali, to cap its hydroxyl groups. The result carries its own CAS number, 61788-49-6, and is a distinct cosmetic ingredient from acetylated lanolin, CAS 61788-48-5, which is the whole wax acetylated rather than a single isolated fraction. On a label they are two separate declarations, and one word — ALCOHOL — is all that tells them apart. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review treats them as two ingredients, with two CAS numbers and two manufacturing routes, for exactly that reason. A formulator reaches for it as an emollient. It softens skin and gives lanolin-like slip and occlusion in the oil phase, with the free hydroxyls capped so that the material is typically described as more soluble and less tacky than lanolin itself. It is also sold, and appears to have been tested, as a blend with cetyl acetate — which is where the comedogenicity argument below begins.

Why we rate it Clogging

We rate it Clogging at Low confidence. Unusually for the lanolin family, the high score attaches to materials printed under this exact name rather than being borrowed from a neighbour, and that is the finding this page exists for. Start with the correction, because the whole lanolin cluster turns on it. Search this family and you will find a comedogenic 4 pinned on lanolin itself and on plain acetylated lanolin. Neither owns it. Fulton's table has no row for whole lanolin at all, and the plain acetylated ester — the one without the word alcohol — he scored 0. The positive number belongs here, to the acetylated alcohol, which is a different molecule with a different CAS number. Nearly every checker on the internet has moved that number onto the shorter names by dropping a word. Where the number comes from. James Fulton's 1989 rabbit-ear survey in the Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists is the source of nearly every comedogenic score in circulation, and we read its Table I off a render of the journal scan rather than a list quoting it. His table prints a row for this exact material. Our transcription records section headings for two blocks of that paper only, and this is not one of them, so we give the row rather than a heading we cannot produce. Its comedogenicity grade is 4; its irritancy grade is 2, and the row carries no asterisk. On Fulton's own published key, "a minimal grade of 0 to 1 is not considered significant," a 2 to 3 is "borderline," and only "a grade of 4 to 5 is uniformally reproduceable and considered positive." So this sits in the one band he treats as a real finding rather than noise — and it is a reading, not the ruler: Fulton defined grade 5 by isopropyl myristate, not by this material. A second reading of the same question, and it is genuinely independent. Morris and Kwan, in 1983 — six years before Fulton, in a different laboratory, on the same 0 to 5 scale — ran their own rabbit-ear assay and scored a material of this same name 4 to 5. They printed no row for the plain ester at all. Two assays, two labs, six years apart, agree on where the high number sits, and it is not on lanolin and not on the plain acetylated ester. That is more corroboration than most numbers on this site can claim — though, as below, what neither assay establishes is that the isolated alcohol was tested apart from the cetyl acetate additive. Then Fulton does the thing almost nobody quoting him repeats: he explains the score, and he does not credit it to the lanolin. In the body of the paper he writes that the acetylated lanolin alcohols are comedogenic and irritating "not because of the acetylated lanolin but because of the cetyl acetate additive," and his table carries cetyl acetate on its own row, scored the same. His conclusion names this material among "the major offenders, such as isopropyl myristate, acetylated lanolin alcohol, and lauric acid derivatives." So the paper that gives this material its high grade attributes the effect to an additive, not to the lanolin backbone. A manufacturer sells such a material today, which corroborates that it exists and is a blend — and no more than that. Lubrizol describes its Acetulan as "a 100% active, cetyl acetate and acetylated lanolin alcohol." That tells you what Lubrizol sells now. It does not establish what Fulton's 1989 sample contained, and neither Fulton nor Morris and Kwan reports a supplier, a trade name or a composition. What the isolated alcohol does on its own, apart from the additive Fulton blamed, is not something these two papers settle. So the rating is Clogging, and the honest account of the evidence behind it is this. Two rabbit-ear assays, in two laboratories, six years apart, put a material of this name in the positive band and agree on it. What neither did was test a human face, a realistic in-use concentration, or the isolated alcohol free of the cetyl acetate. That is why the confidence is Low: two assays agree on the name, but neither shows what the isolated alcohol does apart from the additive the grading paper blamed.

What the evidence doesn’t tell you

Everything above rests on rabbit ears. Fulton's method: the ingredient diluted to roughly 10% in propylene glycol, about 1 mL applied to the inner ear of three New Zealand albino rabbits, five days a week for two weeks, follicles then scored for keratosis under a micrometer. Morris and Kwan ran a rabbit-ear assay too, though on the ear canal and at different (often undiluted) concentrations rather than Fulton's ~10% dilution. The rabbit ear is more sensitive than human skin — Fulton said so himself, and warned that not everything that irritates it will irritate a face. It is not a human face, not a finished formula, and not a concentration anyone actually wears. Concentration is doing work the bare number hides, and it cuts both ways. These assays test at high strength, and a rating is a property of a material at a dose, not a fixed trait. But the author who produced the number was explicit that he distrusted the reassurance of dilution: his conclusion adds, "We are not convinced of the statement that lower concentrations of these compounds can be safely used with no comedogenic consequences." That is a caveat in our direction and against it at once — it warns against assuming a low-percentage use is harmless, while conceding that the safe threshold was never actually established. The additive problem is unresolved, and it is the largest hole in the number. Fulton attributes the score to a cetyl acetate additive rather than to the lanolin-derived alcohol. If the material he tested was a cetyl-acetate blend — which his own prose and the modern commercial product both suggest — then the grade is a reading for that blend, and the behaviour of the pure alcohol on its own is not recoverable from these papers. We are not going to tell you that both components independently score in the positive band; the author's own reading is that one is carrying the other, and he discloses no composition that would let anyone separate them. Human evidence: as far as we can tell, no study has applied this material to human skin at a known concentration and counted comedones. The material is often named in the literature as a stock positive control for comedogenicity testing — a role it earns from exactly the rabbit-ear scores above — but a material's use as a control is a restatement of its assay history, not a fresh measurement, and the one recent human trial we read that mentions it used octyl palmitate, not this ingredient, as its actual control. The assay itself has been contested for decades, and here the objections cut toward the number rather than away from it. Frank asked in 1982 whether the rabbit ear predicts human acnegenicity at all. Draelos and DiNardo, in 2006, tested finished products on human backs and found that isolated ingredient scores did not transfer to the formulas they ended up in. A 2025 review in JAAD Reviews surveying the field found that no standardised comedogenicity test exists and that the label "non-comedogenic" is unregulated. Those objections apply to a positive grade exactly as much as to a zero. One last separation, because this material invites the confusion more than most. It is a lanolin derivative, and wool-derived alcohols are a documented contact allergen — the American Contact Dermatitis Society named lanolin its 2023 Allergen of the Year. Allergy is a different question from comedogenicity. An allergen is not a pore-clogger and a pore-clogger is not an allergen; this rating speaks only to pores, and Porecelain handles sensitisation as a separate matter.

Where you’ll see it

Emollient-heavy leave-on products, where lanolin-like slip is wanted without lanolin's tack: lip balms and lipsticks, cream and stick foundations, blushers, hand and body creams, and hair pomades and conditioners. Those are the categories it suits, not a measured prevalence — we have not audited the market, and label position is not a dose. The practical distinction is the label, and it is one word. "Acetylated Lanolin Alcohol" is this ingredient, and it is the one carrying the family's positive score. "Acetylated Lanolin," without the word alcohol, is a different ingredient that the same paper scored 0. "Lanolin Alcohol," also written "Wool Alcohols," is a third material again, which Fulton scored in a low range. And if you see "Cetyl Acetate" listed beside acetylated lanolin alcohol, that pairing is the Acetulan-type blend the assays appear to have been describing all along.

Sources

Each source says what it actually is. Several widely-cited “sources” for comedogenic ratings are republishing the same 1989 assay, and counting them as independent agreement is how a thin evidence base gets made to look thick.

  1. Fulton JE. "Comedogenicity and irritancy of commonly used ingredients in skin care products." J Soc Cosmet Chem 40:321-333 (1989) The primary source and the origin of nearly every comedogenic number in circulation, read off a render of the journal scan rather than a list quoting it. Method: ingredient at roughly 10% in propylene glycol, inner ear of three New Zealand albino rabbits, five days a week for two weeks, follicular keratosis scored under a micrometer. Its Table I, Section I ("Lanolins and derivatives"), prints this material at a comedogenicity grade of 4 and an irritancy grade of 2, with no asterisk; the plain ester one row up is 0. Fulton's own key: 0 to 1 "not considered significant," 2 to 3 "borderline," 4 to 5 "considered positive." His body text attributes the result to a "cetyl acetate additive," not to the lanolin, and his conclusion names the material among the major offenders. acne.org, CosDNA, Face Reality and the rest republish this row; they are the same assay quoted, not independent corroboration.
  2. Morris WE, Kwan SC. "Use of the rabbit ear model in evaluating the comedogenic potential of cosmetic ingredients." J Soc Cosmet Chem 34:215-225 (1983) An independent primary assay on the same 0 to 5 scale, six years before Fulton and in a different laboratory — not a republisher of him. Cited as the one genuine second reading this page has: it scores a material of this name in the 4 to 5 band and prints no row for the plain ester at all. Its limit is the same as Fulton's — it does not disclose whether its sample was the isolated alcohol or a cetyl-acetate blend, so it confirms the score attaches to the NAME, not that the pure molecule was measured alone.
  3. Lubrizol - Acetulan lanolin derivative, technical product page Manufacturer documentation, cited only for what the material is sold as: Lubrizol describes Acetulan as "a 100% active, cetyl acetate and acetylated lanolin alcohol." It corroborates that the comedogenic material exists and is a two-component blend, which is Fulton's own explanation of the score. It is not a comedogenicity study and does not tell us what the 1989 or 1983 samples contained.
  4. Cosmetic Ingredient Review. "Amended Safety Assessment of Lanolin and Lanolin-Derived Ingredients as Used in Cosmetics" - Final Amended Report, released 21 November 2024 An expert-panel safety review of the lanolin family, cited here for one thing only: it establishes that acetylated lanolin alcohol and plain acetylated lanolin are separate ingredients, with separate CAS numbers and different manufacturing routes (the isolated alcohol fraction versus the whole wax). A safety assessment is not a comedogenicity study, and we do not use it as one. Final Amended Report, released 21 November 2024 — the settled document, not one of CIR's earlier tentative or re-review drafts.
  5. Draelos ZD, DiNardo JC. "A re-evaluation of the comedogenicity concept." J Am Acad Dermatol 54:507-512 (2006) A "Current Issues and Opinion" piece in JAAD that tested finished products on human upper backs and found products testing non-comedogenic despite containing ingredients the rabbit assay had scored comedogenic. Cited because it cuts against a high rabbit-ear grade as much as a low one: it is evidence that an isolated ingredient's score does not transfer to the formula it ends up in. It is not a same-substance rabbit-versus-human validation, and we do not present it as one.
  6. "Comedogenicity in cosmeceuticals - a review of clinical relevance, regulatory gaps, and future directions." JAAD Reviews (2025) A recent peer-reviewed review of the whole field, covering literature from 1972 onward. It is a synthesis of the legacy literature, not a new measurement, and independent of Fulton only in authorship, since the corpus it surveys includes his. Cited for the field-wide caveat that no standardised comedogenicity test exists and that "non-comedogenic" is an unregulated label.

Others in the same family

Lanolin & derivatives behave similarly enough that the evidence for one is often wrongly read across to the others. These are its structural relatives, not a guess. What the evidence says about lanolin & derivatives as a family ›

Last reviewed 2026-06-24 · How we decide

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