Porecelain

Flawless skin starts with the fine print.

Carnauba Wax

Carnauba wax is rated Clear, and for once the score attached to it was measured on a material the paper calls carnauba wax: Fulton's 1989 rabbit assay 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 carnauba wax we identified anywhere — the consumer page printing a 2, and the wax supplier printing a 1, are not second measurements.

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

Fulton 1989 rabbit ear 1 of 5, printed as Carnuba wax — not significant under his key.

What it is

A hard plant wax. The JECFA monograph describes it as obtained from the leaves and buds of the Brazilian wax palm, and the material itself as hard, brittle, sparingly soluble in cold organic solvents and insoluble in water. 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 Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax or Copernicia Cerifera Cera. The palm is also named Copernicia prunifera in current sources; JECFA and the INCI name use cerifera. Both names refer to the same tree, and we have not found a document that says the wax differs by which name is printed. Two other things are worth fixing in place before the number, because both have caused errors elsewhere on this site. Carnauba is a leaf wax, not a seed oil and not a butter, so nothing in the oils and butters literature applies to it. And Fulton's table contains no hydrogenated, esterified, sulfated or PEG-modified carnauba row — where a wax has been chemically modified, as with sulfated jojoba oil at 3 against 0-2* for plain jojoba, his result has sometimes moved. Modified carnauba 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. Carnauba 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 — unlike beeswax two rows away, which reads "0-2" with an asterisk — no asterisk. Fulton's asterisk means "results depend on source of raw material", and it governs every row in his oils section and beeswax's own row. Carnauba wax is in neither set. That is what he printed; it is not a finding that source does not matter, and we are not going to present it as one. 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 "Carnuba wax" — the paper's spelling, one letter short of the modern one, transcribed as printed from a render of the journal scan. That is the kind of near-miss name that has produced real errors elsewhere in this corpus, where a score turned out to belong to a butter rather than an oil, an alcohol fraction rather than a whole wax, or a glyceride rather than the plain material. Here there is no second carnauba-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. What the row does not say is which carnauba: Fulton identified no grade, no supplier, no colour and no origin. The neighbouring wax rows run the same direction. In the same table candelilla 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 carnauba and not a mechanism we can demonstrate. Where the reader will have met a number, and why none of it is a second reading. Koster Keunen, a wax manufacturer, publishes a table giving carnauba wax a comedogenic rating of 1 and an irritation rating of 0 — and its own Test Method column reads "Standard 1989". Its four natural-wax values track Fulton's printed rows: candelilla 1, carnauba 1, ceresin 0, and beeswax 0-2, where his row carries the source asterisk and the supplier's does not. So the supplier is restating the assay it names, not corroborating it, and the article carrying the table is titled "Debunking the Myth of Wax Comedogenicity" and is published by a company that sells waxes. In the other direction, a consumer ingredient site states that carnauba wax "has a comedogenic rating of 2", gives no source and no scale for it, and on the same page also calls the ingredient "typically non-comedogenic". We have found no measurement behind that 2.

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," and warned that not everything which irritates that model will also irritate human skin. We identified no human comedogenicity study of carnauba 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 carnauba wax. We also identified no second numeric reading of carnauba 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 carnauba wax is not among them; the closest that list comes to a wax is paraffin. Fulton's own earlier 1984 paper has no carnauba 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 carnauba wax is large and it is not about pores. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's 1984 final report concluded that carnauba wax, candelilla wax, Japan wax and beeswax are safe as used in cosmetics. JECFA allocated an acceptable daily intake of 0-7 mg/kg body weight on the strength of feeding studies in rats and dogs, and its monograph records "no information available" under observations in man. Those are oral toxicology and cosmetic safety conclusions. Neither measures follicular plugging, and we do not use either as evidence of non-comedogenicity. 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 lipstick or a mascara. 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 carnauba wax is safe for a given face in a given formula.

Where you’ll see it

Carnauba 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: lipsticks and lip balms, mascaras, brow and eyeliner sticks, and moulded balms. It is also a food glaze and a polish. On a label look for Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax or Copernicia Cerifera Cera. Candelilla 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 carnauba 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". Two things about the carnauba entry are almost never reported and are the point of this page: the row is printed as a flat "1" with no range and no asterisk, spelled "Carnuba wax"; and Fulton's own methods define 0-1 as "not considered significant". It identifies no grade, supplier, colour or origin 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 carnauba row, under either spelling. That absence is why the 1989 reading stands alone even inside its own author's work.
  3. Samson M. "Debunking the Myth of Wax Comedogenicity." Koster Keunen (published 5 August 2020, updated 15 June 2021) A marketing and technical article by a wax manufacturer, arguing that waxes are not comedogenic. It is cited here as the clearest example of where a reader meets carnauba's number, and as a disclosure rather than as corroboration: its table gives carnauba wax 1 and an irritation rating of 0, and its own Test Method column reads "Standard 1989" — the assay above. Its four natural-wax figures track Fulton's printed rows (candelilla 1, carnauba 1, ceresin 0, and beeswax 0-2 where his row carries the source asterisk), so it is the same reading restated by a company with a commercial interest in the conclusion, not a second one. The follicular-biopsy figures in the same table belong to the company's own proprietary Kester waxes, not to carnauba.
  4. 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. It assesses SAFETY, not comedogenicity, and does not measure pore-clogging. Cited only for confirming that a panel has reviewed carnauba wax as a cosmetic ingredient. A safety conclusion is not evidence of non-comedogenicity, and we do not use it as one.
  5. Ekelman KB, Chang H-C (first draft). "Carnauba wax," monograph 758, 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 (WHO, Geneva) A dietary toxicology monograph, read in full in the IPCS INCHEM copy. It reviews rat and dog FEEDING studies, a rat reproduction and teratogenicity study and bacterial mutagenicity assays, and the Committee allocated an acceptable daily intake of 0-7 mg/kg body weight. Cited on this page for two things only: its description of what carnauba wax is and where it comes from, and its explicit entry under "Observations in man — no information available". Nothing in it is topical, nothing in it counts comedones, and an oral ADI is not a statement about follicles.
  6. "Carnauba Wax." Skincare Lab ingredient glossary (skincarelab.org), page dated 14 November 2025, updated 13 August 2026 A consumer ingredient page carrying affiliate links, cited as an example of the other number in circulation and not as evidence. It states that carnauba wax "has a comedogenic rating of 2" without naming a scale, a study or any source, and on the same page describes the ingredient as "typically non-comedogenic". We identified no measurement behind the 2. Listed for disclosure: a reader searching this ingredient will meet a 2, a 1 and a 0, 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 carnauba 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 carnauba 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 carnauba 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 scored 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 carnauba 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 carnauba 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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