Porecelain

Flawless skin starts with the fine print.

Candelilla Wax

Candelilla wax is rated Clear, and the score attached to it was measured on a material the paper calls candelilla wax: Fulton's 1989 rabbit-ear survey prints it as a flat 1 on a 0 to 5 scale, with no range and no asterisk. By Fulton's own published key a 1 is not a significant result. It is also the only reading of candelilla wax we identified anywhere, and the 1 to 2 that one supplier page prints corresponds to no result we found.

Clear Low confidence Legacy score 1 on a 0-5 scale · Fulton 1989 · low reliability

Fulton 1989 rabbit ear 1 of 5 — not significant under his own key.

What it is

A hard plant wax. The JECFA monograph describes it as obtained from candelilla plants growing in the dry regions of northern Mexico and, to a lesser extent, southern Texas, Arizona and California, by immersing them in a tank of boiling water acidified with sulfuric acid. The monograph names three source plants — Euphorbia antisiphilitica, Euphorbia cerifers and Pedilanthus pavonis, spelled as printed — while the INCI name uses cerifera. The same monograph gives the composition as roughly 49 to 50 per cent hydrocarbons, 20 to 29 per cent wax esters, 12 to 14 per cent alcohols and sterols, 7 to 9 per cent free acids, 2 to 3 per cent moisture and about 1 per cent mineral matter, and calls the wax hard and brittle. It is a structuring wax, used to stiffen an anhydrous base, hold a moulded stick together and raise the temperature at which the stick gives way. On a label it is Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax or Euphorbia Cerifera Cera. One thing is worth fixing in place before the number, because it has caused errors elsewhere on this site. Candelilla is a plant wax, not a seed oil and not a butter, so nothing in the oils and butters literature applies to it. Fulton's table contains no hydrogenated, esterified, sulfated or PEG-modified candelilla row, and where a wax in his table had been chemically modified the result sometimes moved — sulfated jojoba oil reads 3 against 0-2* for plain jojoba oil. Modified candelilla derivatives on a modern label are separate materials with no reading of their own here.

Why we rate it Clear

We rate it Clear, at Low confidence. The evidence is one legacy number, and the point of the page is being exact about what that number is, what it is worth, and how many times it has actually been taken. The number. Candelilla wax appears in James Fulton's 1989 rabbit-ear survey in the Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists, the source of nearly every comedogenic score in circulation. His method: the ingredient at roughly 10% in propylene glycol, 1 mL applied to the inner ear of New Zealand albino rabbits, five days a week for two weeks, three rabbits per assay, follicles then read for keratosis. His table prints the entry as "1". Not a range, and no asterisk. What a 1 is worth. Fulton set out his reading of his own scale in the methods: a grade of 0 to 1 "is not considered significant", 2 to 3 is "borderline", and only 4 to 5 is "uniformally reproduceable and considered positive". A 1 sits inside the band he himself declined to treat as a result. Clear on this site means no comedogenic concern on record, and here it means exactly that and no more: one reading, on the not-significant side of the line drawn by the man who took it. Material identity, which is where most of these pages come apart, holds. The row reads "Candelilla wax", spelled as the modern name is spelled, transcribed as printed from a render of the journal scan. There is no second candelilla-like row in the table for it to have been confused with, and no derivative row either. The 1 belongs to the material named on the label — which is not true of several of the most-quoted numbers on this site, where a score turned out to belong to a butter rather than an oil, or an alcohol fraction rather than a whole wax. The missing asterisk, which is the part worth reading. Fulton's asterisk means "results depend on source of raw material". Beeswax's row, a few lines away, carries one; the rows in his oils section inherit one from the section heading. Candelilla's row is in neither set, so the 1 is printed unqualified. That is what he printed. It is not a demonstration that the source of the raw material does not matter here, and the reference literature on this wax says something closer to the opposite: the JECFA monograph records that "the chemical and physical properties of the wax vary with the age of the plant and the year in which it is collected". Fulton named no supplier, no grade, no origin and no harvest. A single unqualified 1 was taken on one unidentified sample of a material that a food-safety monograph describes as variable, and we are not going to present the absence of a footnote as a finding. The neighbouring wax rows run the same direction. In the same table the row Fulton spells "Carnuba wax" reads 1, ceresin wax 0, lanolin wax 1, emulsifying wax NF 0 and beeswax 0-2*. Unmodified waxes clustered low in Fulton's hands. That is a pattern in one laboratory's ingredient set, not a measurement of candelilla and not a mechanism we can demonstrate. Where the reader will have met a number. One ingredient product page we read prints a comedogenic rating of "1-2" for this wax, with no scale and no study named, and on the same page also lists "non-comedogenic" among the material's benefits. Fulton's row is a flat 1. We identified no printed result anywhere that a 1 to 2 could be read off, and we have not traced where that range came from.

What the evidence doesn’t tell you

One assay is one assay. The 1 comes from a single laboratory, a single year, three rabbits, and an animal model that is not a human face. Fulton called his own survey "not at all definitive but simply designed to stimulate research". We identified no human comedogenicity study of candelilla wax as an isolated ingredient. The model exists — Mills and Kligman's 1982 paper in Archives of Dermatology, 118:903-905, applied materials to the human back and read the result by cyanoacrylate follicular biopsy — and we identified no run of it on candelilla wax. The JECFA monograph, reviewing this wax for a different purpose entirely, records "Observations in humans — no information available". We also identified no second numeric reading of candelilla wax anywhere in the legacy corpus. Morris and Kwan's 1983 rabbit study, the contemporary assay that openly contradicts Fulton on several materials, prints 32 rows — seven lanolins, nine vegetable oils, eleven esters and five surfactants — and no wax is among them. Nguyen and Maibach's 2007 rabbit study names fourteen materials in its abstract, and candelilla wax is not among them; the closest that list comes to a wax is paraffin. Fulton's own earlier 1984 paper has no candelilla row. So there is nothing to check the 1 against, in either direction: it has not been confirmed and it has not been contradicted. The safety literature on candelilla wax is not about pores. JECFA reviewed feeding studies in rats, dogs and mice and bacterial mutagenicity assays, and concluded that the wax's functional uses as a glazing agent, chewing-gum base component, surface-finishing agent and flavour carrier raised no toxicological concern; the Cosmetic Ingredient Review's 1984 final report concluded that candelilla wax, carnauba wax, Japan wax and beeswax are safe as used in cosmetics. Those are oral toxicology and cosmetic safety conclusions. Neither measures follicular plugging, and we do not use either as evidence of non-comedogenicity. It is also worth noting that most of the animal studies JECFA reviewed fed candelilla wax as part of a gum base or a polymer mixture rather than on its own. What was tested was the wax, not the product. A result about an ingredient at roughly 10% in propylene glycol on a rabbit ear is not a result about a lip balm or a stick foundation. Draelos and DiNardo argued in a 2006 re-evaluation in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology that rabbit-ear results do not reliably transfer to human skin, and a 2025 review in JAAD Reviews found that no standardised comedogenicity test exists and that "non-comedogenic" is an unregulated label. That is why we hold the number loosely — and it is also why a low rabbit score, on its own, is not proof that candelilla wax is safe for a given face in a given formula.

Where you’ll see it

Candelilla is a hardening wax, and the categories here are illustrative rather than the result of a market survey we have run. It turns up in solid, anhydrous formats where stiffness and heat resistance matter: lip balms and lipsticks, balms and salves, mascaras, brow and eyeliner sticks, and stick foundations. JECFA lists it under INS 902 as a food glazing agent, chewing-gum base component, surface-finishing agent and flavour carrier, so a reader also meets it on confectionery. On a label look for Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax or Euphorbia Cerifera Cera. Carnauba wax, the plant wax most often named beside it, is a different material with its own row and its own rating.

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 of nearly every comedogenic score online, and the only numeric assay of candelilla wax we identified. Read off a render of the journal scan rather than from a list quoting it. Method: ingredient at roughly 10% in propylene glycol, applied to the inner ear of New Zealand albino rabbits, five days a week for two weeks, three rabbits per assay, follicles scored for keratosis. A survey Fulton himself called "not at all definitive but simply designed to stimulate research". Three things about the candelilla entry are almost never reported and are the point of this page: the row is printed as a flat "1" with no range; it carries no asterisk, and is not in the oils section that inherits one; and Fulton's own methods define 0-1 as "not considered significant". It identifies no supplier, grade, origin or harvest for the wax tested.
  2. Fulton JE Jr, Pay SR, Fulton JE III. "Comedogenicity of current therapeutic products, cosmetics, and ingredients in the rabbit ear." J Am Acad Dermatol 10(1):96-105 (1984) The same author's earlier rabbit-ear survey, on the same 0-to-5 scale but with a different grade key: there a grade of 1 to 2 "is not considered significant" and 3 or above is positive, so its digits do not read across to the 1989 table. Cited here only for what it does not contain: it has no candelilla wax row. That absence is why the 1989 reading stands alone even inside its own author's work.
  3. Grant DL (first draft). "Candelilla wax," monograph 757, in Toxicological Evaluation of Certain Food Additives and Contaminants, WHO Food Additives Series 30, prepared by the 39th meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives A dietary toxicology monograph, read in full in the IPCS INCHEM copy. It reviews rat, dog and mouse FEEDING studies — most of them of candelilla wax mixed into a gum base or a styrene-butadiene polymer rather than fed alone — and four negative Ames tests, and the Committee concluded that the wax's functional uses raised no toxicological concern. Cited on this page for three things only: its description of what candelilla wax is and how it is extracted, its composition figures, and two sentences that bear directly on the comedogenic number — that "the chemical and physical properties of the wax vary with the age of the plant and the year in which it is collected", and that under observations in humans there is "no information available". Nothing in it is topical, nothing in it counts comedones, and an oral safety conclusion is not a statement about follicles.
  4. "Candelilla wax" (INS 902), Summary of Evaluations Performed by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, IPCS INCHEM record (latest evaluation 2005, TRS 934-JECFA 65/15) A one-page index record, not a study. Cited only for the identifiers used on this page: the INS number, the declared functional classes, and the fact that JECFA returned to the wax in 2005 and found no safety concern at the predicted dietary exposure. It contains no method, no data and nothing about skin.
  5. Elder RL (ed.). "Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Candelilla Wax, Carnauba Wax, Japan Wax, and Beeswax." J Am Coll Toxicol 3(3):1-41 (1984) An expert-panel safety assessment concluding that these waxes are safe as used in cosmetics. We read the published record and abstract of it, not the 41 pages, so we do not characterise its document state beyond what that record prints; the citation is also carried in the JECFA monograph's reference list. It assesses SAFETY, not comedogenicity, and does not measure pore-clogging. Cited for confirming that candelilla wax is in cosmetic use and that a panel has reviewed it. A safety conclusion is not evidence of non-comedogenicity, and we do not use it as one.
  6. "Candelilla Wax." Genesis Mentis ingredient and raw-material product page (read 16 August 2026) A page selling the wax by the pound, cited as an example of the number in circulation and not as evidence. It states that candelilla wax "has a comedogenic rating of 1-2" with no scale, no study and no source, and on the same page lists "Non-Comedogenic" among the material's benefits. Fulton's printed row is a flat 1, so the range is not his figure; we identified no measurement behind it and have not traced where it came from. Listed for disclosure: a reader searching this ingredient will meet a 1 and a 1 to 2, and only one of them corresponds to a printed result in a paper.
  7. 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) A contemporary rabbit-ear assay, undiluted material unless stated, three rabbits, 14 applications, graded microscopically — the paper that openly contradicts Fulton in print on several materials. Cited here for what it does NOT contain: its 32 rows are seven lanolins, nine vegetable oils, eleven esters and five surfactants, and no wax is among them. It is the reason there is no second reading of candelilla wax to weigh against Fulton's.
  8. Nguyen SH, Dang TP, Maibach HI. "Comedogenicity in rabbit: some cosmetic ingredients/vehicles." Cutan Ocul Toxicol 26(4):287-292 (2007) A later rabbit-ear study on a different scale again (0-to-4), which is easily misread as Fulton's. We have read its abstract verbatim and not its full text, so no per-material number from it appears on this site. Cited for one thing: the abstract names the fourteen materials tested — isopropyl palmitate, isopropyl myristate, butyl stearate, isopropyl isostearate, decyl oleate, isostearyl neopentanoate, isocetyl stearate, myristyl myristate, cocoa butter, cetyl alcohol, paraffin, stearyl alcohol, sodium lauryl sulfate and petrolatum — and candelilla wax is not among them.
  9. Mills OH Jr, Kligman AM. "A human model for assessing comedogenic substances." Arch Dermatol 118(11):903-905 (1982) The human assay the rabbit ear is usually offered as a substitute for: material applied to the human back under occlusion, follicular casts then taken by cyanoacrylate biopsy and read for comedones. Cited on this page for the method only, to fix what a human comedogenicity study would look like. We identified no run of it, or of anything like it, on candelilla wax.
  10. 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 in small panels and found products testing non-comedogenic despite containing ingredients the rabbit assay had called comedogenic. Cited in both directions: it is why we hold a legacy rabbit score loosely, and it is also why a near-zero rabbit score is not by itself proof that candelilla wax is safe. It is a product-level study, so it cannot attribute a result to any single ingredient, and it is not a same-substance validation of the rabbit model against human skin.
  11. "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 to 2025. Finds that no standardised comedogenicity test exists and that "non-comedogenic" is an unregulated label. 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, not for anything specific to candelilla wax.

Others in the same family

Waxes behave similarly enough that the evidence for one is often wrongly read across to the others. These are its structural relatives, not a guess.

Last reviewed 2026-08-20 · How we decide

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