Mink Oil
Mink oil is rated Caution on a single 1989 rabbit-ear assay, where it scored 3 — but the same table prints 2 for the refined oil, both "borderline" on the author's own key, under a section footnote saying the result depends on the source of the raw material.
Fulton 1989 scored 3, or 2 for the refined grade — borderline by his own key.
What it is
A rendered animal fat. Mink oil is scraped from the fat layer of mink pelts bound for the fur industry, then rendered and refined — a byproduct of fur farming rather than a crop. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's safety assessment describes it as a mixture of the natural glycerides of 14-to-20-carbon fatty acids, most of them triglycerides, manufactured by scraping the fat from the hide and refining it at high temperature (230-240 °F) with saponification to reduce free fatty acids. Hold on to that refining step: the comedogenic number on this page turns on it. What made formulators reach for it was palmitoleic acid, an unsaturated fatty acid that also occurs in human sebum, which is where the old marketing line about mink oil "resembling skin's own oil" comes from. That is not a property unique to mink — plant oils such as macadamia and sea buckthorn are also described as palmitoleic sources — and in any case a fatty-acid resemblance to sebum is a compositional fact, not a comedogenicity result. CIR lists its cosmetic functions as hair-conditioning agent, occlusive skin-conditioning agent and surfactant, at up to 3%. On a label it is Mink Oil.
Why we rate it Caution
We rate it Caution at Low confidence, and the rating rests on one rabbit-ear assay and nothing else. The number. James Fulton's 1989 survey in the Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists is the source of nearly every comedogenic score in circulation, and it is the source of this one. In Section VI of his Table I, "Oils," the row reads "Mink oil — 3(2)" on a 0-5 scale. The 3 is the score for the oil as Fulton tested it. The 2 in parentheses is not a typo or a range: Fulton's own footnote defines the parentheses as "results using refined oil." So the row records two numbers for one material — 3 for the oil he tested, 2 for a refined version of it. What the numbers are worth. Fulton published a key that almost nobody quoting his table reproduces: a grade of 0 to 1 "is not considered significant," a grade of 2 to 3 "is borderline," and a grade of 4 to 5 "is uniformally reproduceable and considered positive." Both of mink oil's numbers fall in the borderline band. The 3 is the top of it and the 2 is the middle of it, and neither is a positive result nor a clean pass. The "3" that circulates on comedogenic lists is the higher of the two, quoted without the parenthesis, without the scale, and without the key that tells you what a 3 meant to the man who assigned it. The asterisk. Section VI carries Fulton's footnote "Results depend on source of raw material," and it is attached to the section heading, so it governs every oil in it — mink oil included. Fulton then says as much in the body of the paper, naming this oil directly: "Among the natural oils such as sesame oil, avocado oil, and mink oil, the results are improved when a more refined oil is used." That is the sentence behind the parenthetical 2. So the paper reports, in its table and in its prose, that for mink oil specifically the lower grade went with the more refined oil. Whether refining itself caused the difference is not something the paper establishes: it gives two grades and the conditions attached to them, with no replicate and no analysis of what differed between the samples. A note on grades, and its limit. Commercial cosmetic mink oil is itself a refined material — CIR describes the high-temperature rendering and saponification it goes through — which sits closer to the oil behind Fulton's 2 than the oil behind his 3. But Fulton never states the grade of his standard sample, gives no supplier and no specification, so we cannot claim his refined score is the grade in a modern jar. What the record supports is narrower and is the whole point of the page: the number is not one number, it depends on refinement, and Fulton said so. The method, stated plainly, because everything above rests on it: roughly 10% of the ingredient in propylene glycol, applied to the inner ear of three New Zealand albino rabbits, five days a week for two weeks, the follicles then scored for keratosis under a micrometer. It is not a human face, not a finished formula, and not a realistic use concentration.
What the evidence doesn’t tell you
This is one document's reading. We identified no comedogenicity assay of mink oil other than Fulton's 1989 survey. Morris and Kwan's 1983 rabbit-ear study — the other assay on the same 0-5 scale whose full table we hold — has no mink oil row at all, so there is no second measurement to set beside Fulton's. Nor is there a second Fulton reading: his own earlier 1984 rabbit-ear paper, whose table we also hold in full, prints no mink oil row, and Nguyen, Dang and Maibach's 2007 rabbit assay tested fourteen materials, none of them this one. The 3, the 2 and the asterisk all come from the same table, and the republishers that print "3" (acne.org and the comedogenic lists it feeds) are quoting it, not confirming it. We identified no human comedone study of mink oil in the sources and searches reviewed for this page. The human data we did find is about safety, not pores, and the two are not the same question. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's safety assessment reports a skin- penetration test in which mink oil was found on the skin surface of all five panelists an hour after application and within the stratum corneum in two of the five, and it warns formulators that mink oil may enhance the penetration of other ingredients. Penetration into the stratum corneum is not follicular plugging, and the CIR's conclusion that mink oil is safe as used is a statement about irritation, sensitization and toxicity — not about comedones. It is not evidence that the oil does not clog, and we are not using it as any. The rabbit-ear assay has been contested for decades, and the objection applies to a 3 and a 2 equally. Draelos and DiNardo's 2006 re-evaluation in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology tested finished products on small human panels and concluded that an isolated rabbit-ear ingredient score is a poor guide to what a product does on human skin; it was not a human re-test of mink oil, and should not be read as one. A 2025 review in JAAD Reviews found that no standardized comedogenicity test exists and that the label "non-comedogenic" is unregulated. These caveats do not argue the number up or down; they limit what any single rabbit-ear grade can tell you. And the asterisk is not decorative here. Mink oil is a rendered animal fat, not a defined molecule, and its fatty-acid profile varies with the animal, the diet and the rendering. "Results depend on source of raw material" is a real caveat for a material like this, and Fulton's own two numbers — 3 and 2 for the same named oil — are a demonstration of the spread, not an exception to it.
Where you’ll see it
On a label it is Mink Oil. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review recorded roughly 100 cosmetic uses at the time of its assessment, as a hair-conditioning agent, an occlusive skin-conditioning agent and a surfactant, at concentrations up to 3% — historically in emollient creams, lip products and hair conditioners. One label caution worth knowing: many leather-care products sold as "mink oil" contain no actual mink oil, so the name on a tin is not a reliable guide to what is in it. We have not audited the current cosmetic market and are not going to tell you where on an ingredient list it tends to sit, because position is not a dose.
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.
- 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 the number on this page. Read off a 400dpi transcription of the journal's Table I rather than via a list quoting it. Method: roughly 10% of the ingredient in propylene glycol, applied to the inner ear of three New Zealand albino rabbits, five days a week for two weeks, follicular keratosis scored under a micrometer — a rabbit-ear assay, not a human study and not a finished-formula test. Its Section VI, "Oils," prints "Mink oil — 3(2)" on a 0-5 scale, where Fulton's footnote defines the parentheses as "results using refined oil" and the section's asterisk reads "Results depend on source of raw material." His grade key: 0-1 "not considered significant," 2-3 "borderline," 4-5 "considered positive" — so both of mink oil's numbers are borderline. His body text names the oil: "Among the natural oils such as sesame oil, avocado oil, and mink oil, the results are improved when a more refined oil is used." The single document behind the rating; not independent of itself.
- Cosmetic Ingredient Review. "Final Amended Report on the Safety Assessment of Mink Oil." Int J Toxicol 24(Suppl 3):57–64 (2005) An expert-panel SAFETY assessment, not a comedogenicity study, and not downstream of Fulton. Abstract read here; the full text is paywalled at SAGE, so only what the abstract supports is cited. It gives composition (a mixture of the glycerides of 14-to-20-carbon fatty acids, mostly triglycerides), manufacturing (fat scraped from the hide, rendered and refined at 230-240 °F with saponification to reduce free fatty acids), and cosmetic use (hair-conditioning agent, occlusive skin-conditioning agent and surfactant, up to 3%, roughly 100 reported uses). Its skin data are about penetration and irritation, not pores: mink oil was on the skin surface of all five panelists an hour after application and within the stratum corneum in two of five, and the panel warns it may enhance penetration of other ingredients. It concludes the oil is safe as used. That is a safety judgement, not a comedogenicity one, and it says nothing about follicular plugging.
- 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) Fulton's earlier rabbit-ear paper, on the same 0-5 scale, read in full off the journal scan. Cited here for what it does NOT contain: no mink oil row. Two rabbits per test, one ear dosed daily for two weeks with the alternate ear as control, and a different grade key from the 1989 one — "1 to 2 not significant, 3 or above considered positive." Its absence is verified against the table, not assumed, and it means the 1989 grade has no second Fulton reading behind it.
- 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 assay on a 0-to-4 scale, abstract read via EuropePMC. Cited only for an absence: its fourteen test materials are named in the abstract and mink oil is not one of them, so the most recent rabbit corpus we hold neither confirms nor contradicts Fulton's grade. No number is carried from this paper.
- "Mink oil." Wikipedia (accessed 2026-08-01) A tertiary encyclopedia entry, cited only for provenance and context, not for any comedogenicity claim: that mink oil is obtained by rendering mink fat removed from pelts bound for the fur industry, and that it is a source of palmitoleic acid, an unsaturated fatty acid also found in human sebum. It cites the CIR reports for its safety statements. A tertiary encyclopedia entry cannot support quantitative fatty-acid comparisons or claims about what has displaced mink oil in the market, and we do not use it for either. An encyclopedia summary, not a primary document.
- acne.org comedogenic ingredient list A republisher of Fulton's rabbit-ear scores, and one of the places a reader will have met the number 3 for mink oil. It prints the 3 without the parenthetical refined-oil 2, without the 0-5 scale, and without Fulton's key that a 3 is "borderline." Listed here as a downstream copy of the primary table, not as an independent measurement — it is Fulton quoted, not Fulton confirmed.
- Draelos ZD, DiNardo JC. "A re-evaluation of the comedogenicity concept." J Am Acad Dermatol 54:507–512 (2006) The paper usually cited to question the rabbit-ear assay, included here because it cuts against a borderline 3 exactly as much as against anyone's alarming 4. A "Current Issues and Opinion" piece that tested FINISHED PRODUCTS on small human panels and concluded that isolated rabbit-ear ingredient scores are a poor guide to what a product does on human skin. It was not a human re-test of mink oil, and we do not present it as one; we could not read its methods in full (paywalled).
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 ›
Last reviewed 2026-08-05 · How we decide