Porecelain

Flawless skin starts with the fine print.

Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice

Aloe vera leaf juice does not appear in any comedogenicity assay we could find — not in Fulton, not in Morris and Kwan, not in a human study. It rates Clear at Low confidence: the rating rests on the absence of any evidence against it, not on a test it passed, and the 0 that ingredient checkers print for it is an absence rather than a measurement.

Clear Low confidence No legacy score. It does not appear in the assay corpus we searched.

No assay we can find, and no comedogenic concern on record.

What it is

Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice on a label is material from the leaf of Aloe vera, usually the processed inner-leaf gel, though whole-leaf and reconstituted-powder forms carry closely related names. The fresh inner gel is overwhelmingly water: analyses put it at greater than 98% water, with roughly 0.5–1% solids, and those solids are predominantly polysaccharides rather than lipid oil — chiefly acemannan, a partially acetylated mannose polymer — alongside sugars, some minerals, trace sterols and small amounts of anthraquinones from the leaf. Formulators use it as a skin-conditioning agent and a humectant-feeling base; the Cosmetic Ingredient Review's 2007 assessment describes the Aloe-derived cosmetic ingredients as functioning primarily that way and reports them in use at low concentrations. The water content and the polysaccharide chemistry are worth flagging and worth not over-reading. Almost every material in the comedogenicity literature is a lipid — an oil, a wax, a fatty acid or one of their esters — and aloe leaf juice is not that kind of substance. That is a plausible reason it never became a rabbit-ear test article. It is not a result, and it is not a licence to write a zero. Two things sold under the same word are not this material and nothing here transfers to them: aloe latex (the bitter yellow exudate near the rind, high in anthraquinones, an oral laxative — not the gel), and any finished product formulated with aloe in it.

Why we rate it Clear

We rate aloe vera leaf juice Clear at Low confidence. Clear here is an editorial risk classification, not a measured pass: it records that we found no comedogenic signal against it and some human data pointing the reassuring way, and the Low records that a direct comedone measurement is missing entirely. Start with what is absent, because it is most of the story. We identified no comedogenicity assay of aloe in the numeric papers we hold. Fulton's 1989 rabbit-ear table, the source of most of the comedogenic numbers now in circulation, has no aloe row; we read its 220 rows off a 400dpi render. His earlier 1984 rabbit-ear paper, on its own 0–5 scale (1–2 not significant, 3 or above positive), has none either, and we have read its Table I in full. Morris and Kwan's 1983 assay — an independent laboratory on the same 0–5 scale that contradicts Fulton in print on several materials — tested 32 substances: seven lanolins, nine vegetable oils, eleven esters and five surfactants. No botanical leaf gel is among them. Nguyen, Dang and Maibach's 2007 rabbit-ear study, on a 0–4 scale, names its fourteen test materials in its abstract, and aloe is not one of them. acne.org, which catalogues eleven published comedogenicity studies between 1972 and 2009, gives aloe no entry we could find in any of them. Our own index of the legacy corpus records no score for aloe from any document in it — a statement about that corpus, not a claim about the whole literature. That is why our legacy score field is blank rather than zero. Consumer comedogenic checkers do print a 0 for aloe, and we could trace no primary assay behind it. We are not going to say who entered it or why, because we do not know. The narrower and stronger statement is that there is no measurement behind that 0 that we can find, and a 0 sitting in the same column as coconut butter's measured 4 invites a reader to treat an untested ingredient as a tested and cleared one. Untested is not the same as safe. What aloe has, and most entries on that untested list do not, is human data from the acne clinic — though it points at treatment, not cause. Hajheydari and colleagues (2014) randomly assigned 60 patients with mild-to-moderate acne, double-blind, to a combination of 0.05% tretinoin cream plus 50% aloe vera topical gel or to tretinoin plus vehicle, twice daily for eight weeks. The aloe-containing arm reduced non-inflammatory, inflammatory and total lesion counts significantly more than tretinoin alone, with less erythema. That is a study in which adding a large amount of aloe gel to a regimen made acne-prone skin better rather than worse. It is not a comedogenicity measurement, and the reasons matter: both arms received tretinoin, so the randomised difference does support an incremental effect from the arm that added aloe gel, but what was measured is lesion reduction under treatment, not comedone induction by the ingredient on its own. So Clear rests on two things, and neither is a comedone count: an absence we looked for and did not fill, and human use that ran the reassuring way on a different endpoint. That is also why the confidence is Low.

What the evidence doesn’t tell you

This rating is built almost entirely on absence of evidence, which is a weaker thing than evidence of absence. We identified no rabbit-ear assay of aloe, no human comedone-induction study, no cyanoacrylate follicular biopsy — in either direction. An absence of findings and an absence of looking produce the same silence, and here it appears to be the second. An audit can establish that no assay turned up in the papers we hold and the searches we ran; it cannot establish that none was ever run anywhere. Clear is the least-wrong call available, not a clean bill of health, and if the assay were run tomorrow we would have no standing to be surprised by the result whichever way it fell. The human trial is the strongest reassuring evidence on this page, and it was not built to answer this question. Hajheydari tested aloe gel plus tretinoin against vehicle plus tretinoin. Because both arms carried the retinoid, the randomised difference does support an incremental effect from the aloe arm; what it cannot support is a comedone-induction result for the ingredient on its own. It measured lesion counts during treatment, not comedone formation, and it tested a finished 50% gel rather than the isolated material. A result about a formula is not a result about a molecule. The chemical argument noted above — that a substance which is more than 98% water, with polysaccharide rather than lipid solids, is an unlikely pore-clogger — is reasoning, not a result, and reasoning of exactly that shape is how unsourced zeros get into ingredient columns. We lean on it lightly and not at all as proof. Safety is not comedogenicity either: the CIR concluded the Aloe-derived ingredients are safe as used in cosmetics, but a safety assessment addresses irritation, sensitisation and toxicity, and we identified no comedogenicity data in it; its silence on pores is not evidence that the wider literature is silent. Contact dermatitis and urticaria have been reported from topical aloe, but an allergy is not a comedone, and the two questions do not answer each other. Finally, "aloe vera" on a label is a range, not a fixed substance — inner-leaf gel, whole-leaf extract and reconstituted-powder juices differ in what they carry, and no comedogenicity work we can find has compared them, because we have found no comedogenicity work on aloe at all to compare.

Where you’ll see it

Aloe appears near the top of soothing gels and after-sun products, and lower down in a very wide range of moisturisers, serums, masks, cleansers, toners and hair products, where it is used as a skin-conditioning agent and a light, water-based carrier. On a label it is most often Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice or Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, and it can also appear as reconstituted material listed as Water (and) Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice Powder. Its position in an ingredient list is not a comedogenicity signal, here or anywhere, and there is no measured number to read off it in any case.

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 rabbit-ear survey most online comedogenic numbers descend from. Method: ingredient diluted to roughly 10% in propylene glycol, applied to the inner ear of New Zealand albino rabbits, three rabbits per assay, follicles scored for keratosis on a 0–5 scale whose own key reads 0–1 "not considered significant," 2–3 "borderline," 4–5 "considered positive." Read here off a 400dpi render of the journal scan rather than through a list quoting it. Cited purely for an absence: its 220 rows contain no aloe entry. Fulton called the survey "not at all definitive." It supports no rating of aloe in either direction.
  2. Fulton JE Jr, Pay SR, Fulton JE 3rd. "Comedogenicity of current therapeutic products, cosmetics, and ingredients in the rabbit ear." J Am Acad Dermatol 10(1):96–105 (1984) An earlier, separate rabbit-ear study from the same lead author, on its own 0–5 scale whose key is not the 1989 key: 1–2 is read as not significant and 3 or above as positive, so its numbers cannot be compared with 1989 numbers without carrying each paper's own key. We have read its Table I in full. Cited here only for an absence: it contains no aloe row, and so adds no score in either direction.
  3. 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 laboratory's rabbit ear-canal assay on the same 0–5 scale, three rabbits, materials applied undiluted unless stated, 14 applications, graded microscopically. It predates Fulton 1989 and contradicts it in print on several materials, which is why it is not a republisher of him. Its 32 test materials are seven lanolins, nine vegetable oils, eleven esters and five surfactants. Cited for an absence: no botanical leaf gel, and no aloe, is among them.
  4. acne.org — "What is comedogenicity, and what ingredients are comedogenic? The full story" A republisher of the legacy assays, but a thorough one: it catalogues eleven published comedogenicity studies from 1972 to 2009 with their methods and findings, and combines them under its own multi-study rule rather than quoting one table. Not an independent measurement. Cited as an index of the literature — aloe appears nowhere in it, in any study, at any grade, which is the most load-bearing fact on this page and a statement about this document rather than about every document.
  5. Cosmetic Ingredient Review Expert Panel. "Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Aloe Andongensis Extract … Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice … and Aloe Ferox Leaf Juice Extract." Int J Toxicol 26(Suppl 2):1–50 (2007) The industry expert-panel SAFETY dossier on the Aloe-derived cosmetic ingredients, in its final published state. Cited for identity and tolerance data only: the ingredients function as skin-conditioning agents, are used at low concentrations, were not toxic in acute oral studies, and carry an industry-agreed 50 ppm cap on anthraquinones; reported topical adverse effects include contact dermatitis and urticaria. We identified no comedogenicity data in it. A safety conclusion is not evidence of noncomedogenicity, an allergy is not a comedone, and this report's silence on pores is not evidence that the wider literature is silent.
  6. Hajheydari Z, Saeedi M, Morteza-Semnani K, Soltani A. "Effect of Aloe vera topical gel combined with tretinoin in treatment of mild and moderate acne vulgaris: a randomized, double-blind, prospective trial." J Dermatolog Treat 25(2):123–129 (2014) A randomised double-blind trial: 60 patients with mild-to-moderate acne, twice daily for eight weeks, comparing 0.05% tretinoin cream plus 50% aloe vera gel against tretinoin plus vehicle. The aloe-containing arm reduced non-inflammatory, inflammatory and total lesion scores significantly more than tretinoin alone, with less erythema. Characterised precisely because the precision is the point: it is a treatment-efficacy trial, not a comedogenicity assay; both arms received tretinoin, so the randomised difference is attributable to the added aloe gel rather than to the retinoid; and it counted lesion reduction under treatment, not comedone induction. It is evidence that adding a large amount of aloe gel to a regimen did not worsen acne-prone skin. It is not a comedogenicity measurement.
  7. "Comedogenicity in cosmeceuticals: a review of clinical relevance, regulatory gaps, and future directions." JAAD Reviews (2025) A recent peer-reviewed clinical review of the comedogenicity field from 1972 onward. It is a synthesis of the same legacy literature, not a new measurement, and independent of Fulton only in authorship. Cited for one field-wide caveat: no standardised comedogenicity test exists, and "non-comedogenic" is an unregulated label. It sets the ceiling on how much any comedogenic number, present or absent, can be asked to carry.
  8. Consumer comedogenic checkers and ingredient databases (CosDNA and similar) Aggregators that publish a 0–5 "acne" number per ingredient with no disclosed method, provenance or citation. Aloe is listed at 0 on scale pages of this kind. Cited as the artefact being corrected, not as a measurement: we traced no primary assay behind that 0 and make no claim about where it came from or who entered it. It is not carried as our legacy value.

Others in the same family

Botanical extracts 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 botanical extracts as a family ›

Last reviewed 2026-08-12 · How we decide

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