Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is rated Clogging — and the comedogenic 4 that follows it around the internet is not its score. Fulton's 1989 rabbit assay, the source of nearly every comedogenic number in circulation, has no coconut oil row anywhere in it. It scored coconut butter. We were republishing that number too, on the page whose whole argument is that everyone else republishes carelessly, until an outside fact-check made us go and read the table. What stands in its place is better evidence, not worse.

What it is

The oil pressed from the dried flesh of the coconut. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's 2011 safety assessment describes it as roughly 90% saturated triglycerides. Its dominant fatty acids are lauric acid at roughly 45–53% and myristic acid at roughly 16–21%. It has no sharp melting point — it melts across a range of roughly 21–25 °C, which is why the same jar is a soft solid in a cool room and a clear liquid in a warm one, and why it is liquid on contact with skin. CIR lists its cosmetic functions as fragrance ingredient, hair conditioning agent and skin-conditioning agent, and reports it in 626 formulations at concentrations from 0.0001% to 70%. On a label it is Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil. One word of care about chain length, because the mechanism section below leans on it. Fulton's own generalisation was about what he called "mid-chain-length" fatty acids. Lauric acid (C12) is medium-chain by the usual convention. Myristic acid (C14) is classified as long-chain by PubChem. Calling coconut oil "mostly medium-chain fatty acids" is the kind of tidy sentence that gets repeated without checking, and it is not quite right.

Why we rate it Clogging

We rate it Clogging at Moderate confidence. We hold no legacy score for it, because there isn't one. Start with the correction, because it is the most useful thing on this page. Until 12 July 2026 this page was live and it said two things that were false. It said Fulton's 1989 rabbit-ear assay scored coconut oil a 4. It said no trial had ever tested coconut oil on a human face. An external fact-check flagged both, and we went and checked both, and both were wrong. This is the failure we accuse every other ingredient list of committing — quoting a number without opening the paper it came from — and we committed it on the most-read page we have. It is fixed. The record of the fix is in the ratings file and in this paragraph rather than quietly swept through. What Fulton actually contains. We rendered Table I of the 1989 paper to 300dpi and read it visually, row by row. Section VI, "Oils," runs: Cocoa butter 4, Coconut butter 4, hydrogenated vegetable oil, sesame oil, corn oil, avocado oil, evening primrose oil, mink oil, soybean oil, shark liver oil, cotton seed oil, peanut oil, olive oil, sandalwood seed oil, almond oil, apricot kernel oil, hydrogenated polyisobutane, castor oil, hydrogenated castor oil, chaulmoogra oil, babassu oil, squalane, maleated soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, mineral oil. There is no coconut oil entry there, and none anywhere else in the paper, in any table. The paper's only sentence about coconut, in full, is this: "Clinically, natural oils such as cocoa butter and coconut butter have long been known to cause problems with pomade acne. This is confirmed in the rabbit ear assay." That is all of it. Fulton never says what his "coconut butter" actually was — no supplier, no INCI name, no hydrogenation status, no composition — and the section carries his own footnote: "Results depend on source of raw material." So the most-quoted comedogenic score in skincare is a score for a different material, of unstated identity, and the lists have been passing it to the oil for more than thirty years. We rate coconut butter separately. The 4 lives there, and it stays there. What we have instead is one human study, and it is the reason the rating survives. Ungaksornpairote and colleagues, in the Department of Dermatology at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, published it in the Thai Journal of Dermatology in 2015. Thirty volunteers, all women, aged 35 to 64 (mean 44.3), Fitzpatrick skin types III–IV, screened for normal skin hydration. Each applied 1 mL of 100% virgin coconut oil to the whole face, twice daily, for one month, plus 2 mL to the abdomen. Facial sebum rose significantly — median 5 to 11, p = 0.015. Hydration rose, p = 0.022. Transepidermal water loss did not move at all, p = 0.470, which means the study failed to reproduce the barrier benefit coconut oil is largely sold on. And acne, graded with the Tutakne and Chari score at baseline and at follow-up: of the 26 volunteers who had no acne at the start, 13 — half — had acne after a month of it. The acne was mild, and six of those thirteen had resolved by a follow-up two months after stopping. The four who started with mild acne showed no change. The study was co-funded by Theppadungporn Coconut Co., Ltd., the manufacturer of the coconut oil it tested. A coconut oil company paid for a study that found half the clear-skinned participants broke out and that the barrier claim did not hold. That is a finding against the sponsor's interest, which makes it more credible rather than less. Moderate, and not High, is a deliberate call. Our confidence tiers key off the kind of evidence underneath a rating, and a High would mean a proper human trial. This is not one: it is uncontrolled, unrandomised, unblinded, single-arm, thirty women in a narrow age band that is not the acne demographic, with acne recorded as an adverse-event observation rather than a powered endpoint and no comedones counted at all. It is real and it points one way and it is not strong enough to carry a High. The mechanism agrees with it — Fulton's own generalisation was that the mid-chain-length fatty acids were his most potent producers of follicular keratosis, and coconut oil is roughly half lauric acid — but a generalisation about a chain length is not a measurement of this oil, and we are not going to launder one into the other.

What the evidence doesn’t tell you

The one human study is thin in every direction that matters. Thirty people. No control group, no randomisation, no blinding, no vehicle arm — so the acne that appeared has nothing to be compared against, and a single-arm before-and-after in thirty faces cannot separate an effect of the oil from anything else that happened to those faces over a month. All the participants were women, all were 35 to 64, and adult women in that band are not the population most people reading this page belong to. Acne was a safety observation, not the endpoint the study was designed and powered to measure. Nobody in that study counted comedones — the thing the word "comedogenic" actually refers to. And the Thai Journal of Dermatology, which is the peer-reviewed journal of the Dermatological Society of Thailand and is not a predatory outlet, is indexed only in Thailand's national index (TCI); it is in neither PubMed nor Scopus, which is why almost nobody writing about coconut oil has read it. It is a real paper. It is not a strong one. Both halves of that sentence are load-bearing. No randomised trial has tested topical coconut oil on facial acne. That is the precise claim, and the precision is the point — we previously wrote "no trial has ever tested it on a human face," which was simply false. Randomised trials of coconut oil on human skin do exist: Agero and Verallo-Rowell (2004) compared extra virgin coconut oil against mineral oil for xerosis, on the legs; Evangelista and colleagues (2014) tested it against mineral oil in paediatric atopic dermatitis. Neither was about acne, neither was on the face, and neither counted comedones. Those two are also not an exhaustive account of the human coconut oil literature, and we do not claim they are. There is a second rabbit study, and we are citing it only so that a reader who finds it knows what it is. Francis and Shojan, "Comedogenicity of Oils," International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research (2019), tested virgin coconut oil, mill coconut oil, Parachute-brand coconut oil, mustard oil and liquid paraffin on 24 rabbits. It is not evidence and we have not used it as any. The journal appears by name on Beall's list of predatory journals. Submission to publication took 22 days. Four of the 24 rabbits died and none were necropsied. The authors accepted the null hypothesis on four to six ears per group — "Since the p-value in each case is greater than 0.05, we accept the null hypotheses. Hence it is concluded that all oils studied are identical" — which is not what a non-significant result in a sample that size means. Liquid paraffin, their comparator, itself produced comedones in three of five ears, and there was no untreated ear anywhere in the study, so nothing in it has a baseline. And the paper acknowledges funding from Marico, which makes Parachute, one of the test articles, while its own footer declares "Source of Support: Nil; Conflict of Interest: None." The rabbit-ear assay itself has been contested for a long time, and it is worth being accurate about who contested it and when. Frank's 1982 paper in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology asked directly whether the rabbit ear model, in its then-present state, was prophetic of acnegenicity — twenty-four years before the Draelos and DiNardo re-evaluation that is usually cited as the objection. Draelos and DiNardo (2006), in the same journal's Current Issues and Opinion section, tested finished products on human upper backs and found products testing non-comedogenic despite containing ingredients the rabbit assay had scored as comedogenic. That is a finding about finished formulations, not a head-to-head validation of the rabbit model against human skin, and it should not be described as one. A 2025 review in JAAD Reviews surveying the field from 1972 onward found that no standardised comedogenicity test exists at all and that the label "non-comedogenic" is unregulated. On this page these objections have an odd effect: the number they would have undermined turns out not to be coconut oil's in the first place. One separate observation complicates the picture rather than resolving it. Yang and colleagues, in Biomaterials (2009), showed that free and liposomal lauric acid kill Cutibacterium acnes — then called Propionibacterium acnes — the bacterium implicated in inflammatory acne. Lauric acid is about half of coconut oil. But that work tested lauric acid, not coconut oil; in vitro, not in a pore; and in neither a rabbit nor a person. It is also not a paradox, and we should not dress it up as one: killing a bacterium and plugging a follicle are different endpoints, and there is no logical reason a material cannot do both. It is a loose end. Nobody we can find has run the study that would tie it off.

Where you’ll see it

On a label it appears as Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's 2011 assessment reports it in 626 cosmetic formulations at concentrations from 0.0001% to 70%, across categories that run from baby lotions, oils and creams through bath products to eye makeup — so it can be almost anywhere on an ingredient list, and the position tells you very little on its own. Two neighbours are worth keeping separate from it, because conflating them is how the error on this page happened in the first place. Coconut Butter, also labelled Hydrogenated Coconut Oil, is a different entry here — and it is the one carrying the legacy 4. Fractionated coconut oil is a different ingredient again, with its own INCI name, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, and its own entry and its own rating. The word "coconut" on a label covers materials the legacy literature treats very differently, and only one of them was ever actually in the rabbit's ear.

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 in circulation — and the reason this page was rewritten. Read off a 300dpi render of the journal scan rather than via a list quoting it. 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. IT CONTAINS NO COCONUT OIL ROW. Section VI of Table I, "Oils," scores Cocoa butter 4 and Coconut butter 4 and then goes on to hydrogenated vegetable, sesame, corn, avocado and the rest; coconut oil appears nowhere in the paper, in any table. Its only coconut sentence is "Clinically, natural oils such as cocoa butter and coconut butter have long been known to cause problems with pomade acne. This is confirmed in the rabbit ear assay." Fulton never states what his coconut butter was — no supplier, no INCI name, no hydrogenation status, no composition — and the section footnote reads "Results depend on source of raw material." Cited here as the source of an error, not as evidence for a rating.
2. Ungaksornpairote C, Kaewkes A, Sathaworawong A, Wanitphakdeedecha R, Manuskiatti W. "The effects of virgin coconut oil on the biophysical properties of human skin — A pilot study." Thai J Dermatol 31(3):158–169 (2015) The only study we can find that put coconut oil on human faces under observation, and the study our rating now rests on. Department of Dermatology, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University. 30 women, aged 35–64, Fitzpatrick III–IV, screened for normal hydration; 1 mL of 100% virgin coconut oil to the whole face twice daily for one month. Facial sebum rose significantly (median 5 to 11, p = 0.015), hydration rose (p = 0.022), and TEWL did not change (p = 0.470). Of the 26 who had no acne at baseline, 13 developed acne. Cited with its weaknesses stated plainly: single-arm, uncontrolled, unrandomised, unblinded, all female, a non-acne age band, acne recorded as an adverse-event observation rather than a powered endpoint, and no comedone counts. Co-funded by Theppadungporn Coconut Co., Ltd., the manufacturer of the oil tested — a result against the sponsor's interest, which strengthens it. Published in the peer-reviewed journal of the Dermatological Society of Thailand; indexed in the Thai national index (TCI), not in PubMed or Scopus, which is why it has no stable public URL here and why almost no one writing about this ingredient has read it.
3. Cosmetic Ingredient Review (Burnett CL, Bergfeld WF, Belsito DV, et al.). "Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Cocos nucifera (Coconut) Oil and Related Ingredients." Int J Toxicol 30(3 Suppl):5S–16S (2011) An independent expert-panel safety review, not a comedogenic list and not downstream of Fulton. Cited here only for what we could actually read in it: roughly 90% saturated triglycerides, and use in 626 cosmetic formulations at 0.0001% to 70%. Its full text is paywalled, so the composition figures on this page are cited to Dayrit instead — quoting a number from inside a document we have not opened is the exact error this page exists to correct. It assesses safety, not comedogenicity, and says nothing about pores.
4. Dayrit FM. "The Properties of Lauric Acid and Their Significance in Coconut Oil." J Am Oil Chem Soc 92:1–15 (2015) Peer-reviewed lipid chemistry, and the source of the fatty-acid composition on this page — lauric roughly 45–53%, myristic roughly 16–21%. Nothing to do with pores; cited because a composition claim needs a composition source, and this is one we have read.
5. Frank SB. "Is the rabbit ear model, in its present state, prophetic of acnegenicity?" J Am Acad Dermatol 6(3):373–377 (1982) The earliest peer-reviewed challenge to the rabbit-ear model that we have found — twenty-four years before the Draelos and DiNardo paper usually cited as the objection. Cited for chronology as much as for content: the assay every comedogenic list still rests on was being questioned in the literature before most of those lists existed.
6. 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. Characterised narrowly on purpose: it is evidence that an ingredient's score does not transfer to the formula it ends up in. It is not a head-to-head validation of the rabbit ear against human skin, and it is not the first or the strongest critique of the assay — Frank got there in 1982.
7. "Comedogenicity in cosmeceuticals — a review of clinical relevance, regulatory gaps, and future directions." JAAD Reviews (2025) 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.
8. Yang D, Pornpattananangkul D, Nakatsuji T, et al. "The antimicrobial activity of liposomal lauric acids against Propionibacterium acnes." Biomaterials 30(30):6035–6040 (2009) In vitro laboratory work on free and liposomal LAURIC ACID — not coconut oil, not in a pore, not in a person — showing it kills the bacterium implicated in inflammatory acne. Cited as a separate observation that complicates the story, not as a benefit and not as a paradox: killing a bacterium and plugging a follicle are different endpoints, and nothing rules out both.
9. Agero AL, Verallo-Rowell VM. "A randomized double-blind controlled trial comparing extra virgin coconut oil with mineral oil as a moisturizer for mild to moderate xerosis." Dermatitis 15(3):109–116 (2004) A randomised controlled trial of topical coconut oil in humans — on the legs, for dryness, against mineral oil. Cited to make one distinction precise: randomised human trials of this ingredient exist, but none of them is about facial acne, and this one did not count comedones.
10. Evangelista MT, Abad-Casintahan F, Lopez-Villafuerte L. "The effect of topical virgin coconut oil on SCORAD index, transepidermal water loss, and skin capacitance in mild to moderate pediatric atopic dermatitis — a randomized, double-blind, clinical trial." Int J Dermatol 53(1):100–108 (2014) The second randomised human trial of topical coconut oil, in children with atopic dermatitis. Cited for the same reason as Agero: it is real human evidence about this ingredient, it is not about acne, it is not on the face, and it counted no comedones. Together these two are the trials people reach for when they say coconut oil "has been studied in humans." They have not studied the question this site is about, and they are not the whole human literature either.
11. Francis A, Shojan A. "Comedogenicity of Oils." Int J Contemp Med Res 6(8):H5–H7 (2019) A second rabbit-ear study of coconut oil, cited so that a reader who finds it knows what it is, and used as evidence for nothing. IJCMR appears by name on Beall's list of predatory journals. Submission to publication was 22 days. Four of its 24 rabbits died and none were necropsied. The authors accept the null hypothesis on four to six ears per group — "Since the p-value in each case is greater than 0.05, we accept the null hypotheses. Hence it is concluded that all oils studied are identical." Their comparator, liquid paraffin, itself produced comedones in three of five ears, and no untreated control ear appears anywhere in the study. The paper acknowledges funding from Marico, maker of Parachute — one of its test articles — beneath a footer reading "Source of Support: Nil; Conflict of Interest: None."
12. acne.org comedogenic ingredient list Republishes the Fulton 1989 rabbit-ear scores. Not an independent measurement, and neither are CosDNA, Face Reality or Banish — they are one assay quoted four times, not four sources agreeing. Listed here for a specific reason: this is one of the places a reader will have met the number 4 for coconut oil, and the paper it is quoting does not contain a coconut oil row at all. We cited it the same way, on this page, until 12 July 2026.

Others in the same family

Oils 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 oils as a family ›

• Argan Oil Clear Low
• Avocado Oil Caution Low
• Castor Oil Clear Moderate
• Corn Oil Caution Low
• Cottonseed Oil Caution Low
• Evening Primrose Oil Caution Low
• Flaxseed Oil Caution Low
• Grapeseed Oil Caution Low

Last reviewed 2026-07-12 · How we decide

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