Tocopherol
Tocopherol — vitamin E — is rated Caution, and the comedogenic number attached to it is not a number but a range. Fulton's 1989 rabbit-ear assay scored it 0–3 on a 0–5 scale, and marked both the name and the score with the asterisk he defines as "results depend on source of raw material." Under his own key that range tops out in the borderline band, and the Caution follows the key. Tocopheryl acetate, a separate row scored 0, is a different molecule and not evidence about this one. We found no human comedogenicity study of the free vitamin itself.
Fulton 1989 printed a source-dependent 0-3 of 5, topping out in his borderline band.
What it is
Vitamin E, as it reaches an ingredient label. "Tocopherol" is the INCI name for the free vitamin — in practice a mixture of the alpha, beta, gamma and delta forms — used in cosmetics as an antioxidant. Its main job in a formula is often defensive rather than active: it slows the oxidation of the oils and other unsaturated ingredients around it, which is why it turns up in so many oil- containing products and frequently near the end of the list, at a fraction of a percent. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's 2018 assessment reports tocopherol used at up to 5%. Hold on to the fact that "vitamin E" is not one material, because the whole of this page turns on it. Three separate ingredients, three separate INCI names, three separate entries in the CIR's own review, are all sold as vitamin E. TOCOPHEROL is the free vitamin. TOCOPHERYL ACETATE is that vitamin esterified with acetic acid — more stable, less prone to oxidation, and a common esterified form in finished products (the CIR reports it at up to 36%, a maximum use concentration and not a measure of how often it appears). TOCOPHERYL LINOLEATE is a third ingredient again, the vitamin esterified with linoleic acid. They are not interchangeable, and the legacy assay did not treat them as one.
Why we rate it Caution
We rate it Caution at Low confidence. The Caution follows the paper's own key; the Low follows from the fact that the only material-specific evidence we have is a single rabbit-ear assay that returned a range rather than a reading. Fulton 1989 does contain a tocopherol row, and it is worth reading exactly. In Section X of Table I, "Vitamins and herbs," it prints "Tocopherol* — 0–3," on his 0–5 scale, with an asterisk on the ingredient name as well as on the score. That asterisk is the one Fulton defines once in the paper, in his oils section, as "results depend on source of raw material." So the score he assigned is not a point; it is a range he explicitly flagged as varying with the material tested. Read against his own published key, the range decides the rating. Fulton's 1989 key reads: a grade of 0–1 "is not considered significant," 2–3 is "borderline," and 4–5 is "considered positive." Tocopherol's 0–3 therefore runs from not-significant at the bottom to the top of borderline at the top. It never reaches the positive band, and it does not stay inside the not-significant one either. This site's word for borderline is Caution, so a result topping out at 3 on that scale is rated Caution. That is the paper's own reading of its own number, not something we have added to it. The asterisk points the same way. A result its author marked as depending on the source of the raw material carries more uncertainty, not less: it says the number moved between samples, and we cannot tell you which sample a given commercial tocopherol resembles. Neither the bottom of the range nor the flag on it is evidence of clearness. The method underneath it is the rabbit ear. Fulton diluted an ingredient to roughly 10% in propylene glycol, applied it to the inner ear of New Zealand albino rabbits, three rabbits per assay, five days a week for two weeks, and scored the follicles for keratosis. It is not a human face and not a finished formula, and roughly 10% is above the up-to-5% the Cosmetic Ingredient Review reports for tocopherol in use. He established no dose-response for this row, so we cannot say what a lower concentration would have scored. One row over, the material identity does real work — and it is an identity point, not a rating one. Fulton scored TOCOPHERYL ACETATE, the esterified and more stable form, a flat 0. That 0 belongs to a different molecule and is not evidence about this one. It is on this page only because the two share the words "vitamin E" on the front of a pack, and the numbers get swapped.
What the evidence doesn’t tell you
The whole rating rests on one rabbit-ear assay that returned a range, and a range that spans not-significant to borderline is not a measurement of anything precise. Fulton did not report what his tocopherol sample was — its purity, its isomer mix, its supplier, whether it was diluted in a carrier — and his asterisk says only that the result depends on the source of the raw material, without saying which of those things does the work. We can tell you the number he printed; we cannot tell you which point in his range a given commercial tocopherol would land on. We identified no human comedogenicity study of tocopherol, the free vitamin, itself. That is the bounded claim, and the boundary is the point: we searched and did not find one, which is not the same as proving none exists. Nor is there a second assay to set beside Fulton's: tocopherol has no row in his 1984 paper, none in Morris and Kwan 1983, and none in Nguyen 2007. Those are absences we checked in the papers themselves, not zeros. There is a human comedogenicity trial in this territory, and it is instructive precisely because of what it does NOT test. Waranuch and colleagues (2021) ran a double-blind randomised controlled trial on 15 male backs — 12 analysed — applying test creams for four weeks and counting microcomedones by epidermal biopsy under a stereomicroscope. It is a properly designed study: the positive control, octyl palmitate, drove the microcomedone count from about 6 to about 27 in every subject, so the assay could detect a comedogenic material. The finished creams, which "contained d-alpha tocopheryl acetate and other ingredients including lanolin, kernel oil and avocado oil and sunflower oil," tested non-comedogenic. But that is a result about finished products, not about any one ingredient: you cannot lift tocopheryl acetate's contribution out of a cream that also contains lanolin and three oils, and a formula testing clean does not clear each thing in it. And it is the acetate, a different molecule from the free tocopherol this page is about. It is evidence that those products did not clog pores. It is not evidence about tocopherol. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review's assessment of the tocopherols is a safety review, not a comedogenicity study, and safety is a different question from pore-clogging. It concludes the group safe as used and reports the irritation and sensitisation data; its one relevant detail for this page is that it treats tocopherol, tocopheryl acetate and tocopheryl linoleate as separate ingredients. The positive patch tests it records against tocopheryl linoleate are contact-allergy findings, which the panel attributed to a contaminant or metabolite — an allergy signal, not a comedogenicity one, and on a fourth molecule again. The rabbit-ear assay itself has been contested for decades, and those objections cut against a low score as hard as a high one. Draelos and DiNardo's 2006 re-evaluation found that finished products often test non-comedogenic despite containing ingredients the rabbit assay scored as comedogenic; a 2025 review in JAAD Reviews found no standardised comedogenicity test exists at all and that "non-comedogenic" is an unregulated label. A 0–3 from a rabbit ear is a weak instrument reading a weak result. Finally, the reputation the number travels with. Some consumer lists rate tocopherol around a 2 and attribute it to the fact that natural tocopherol is often supplied in a vegetable-oil carrier, so that what is really being rated is the oil. That is a plausible account of Fulton's source-dependent asterisk, but it is an assertion, not a measurement: no comedogenicity paper we have found isolates the carrier from the vitamin. We record it as the claim it is, and no more.
Where you’ll see it
On a label it reads Tocopherol, and on the front of a pack, "Vitamin E." It is used as an antioxidant across serums, moisturisers, face and body oils, balms, lip products and sunscreens, usually low on the ingredient list and at low concentration — frequently there to keep the formula's own oils from going rancid as much as for any effect on skin. Two neighbours are worth keeping separate from it, because sharing the name "vitamin E" is what lets the numbers blur. Tocopheryl Acetate is a common stable ester, with its own row at 0. Tocopheryl Linoleate is a third ingredient again. Which one you are holding is decided by the INCI name, not by the "vitamin E" on the front, and the legacy scores are not the same across the three.
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 of nearly every comedogenic number in circulation, read off the journal scan rather than via a list quoting it. Method: ingredient at roughly 10% in propylene glycol, applied to the inner ear of New Zealand albino rabbits, three rabbits per assay, five days a week for two weeks, follicles scored for keratosis on a 0–5 scale. Section X of Table I, "Vitamins and herbs," prints "Tocopherol* — 0–3," with the asterisk on both the name and the score; the same table scores "Tocopheryl acetate" 0 on a separate row. The asterisk is defined once in the paper, in the oils section, as "results depend on source of raw material," and Fulton's own key reads 0–1 "not significant," 2–3 "borderline," 4–5 "positive." A range, not a point, and it stops short of positive.
- Waranuch N, Wisutthathum S, Tuanthai S, Kittikun P, Grandmottet F, Tay F, Viyoch J. "Safety assessment on comedogenicity of dermatological products containing d-alpha tocopheryl acetate in Asian subjects: A double-blind randomized controlled trial." Contemp Clin Trials Commun 23:100834 (2021) A human comedogenicity trial, cited here for what it does NOT test. Double-blind randomised controlled design, 15 healthy male backs (12 analysed), test creams for four weeks, microcomedones counted by epidermal biopsy under a stereomicroscope. The positive control, octyl palmitate, raised the microcomedone count from about 6 to about 27 in every subject, so the assay worked. The active creams "contained d-alpha tocopheryl acetate and other ingredients including lanolin, kernel oil and avocado oil and sunflower oil" and tested non-comedogenic. This is a result about finished formulations, not about a single ingredient — tocopheryl acetate's own contribution cannot be separated from a cream that also contains lanolin and three oils — and it tests the acetate, not the free tocopherol on this page. It clears the products, not the vitamin.
- Fiume MM, Bergfeld WF, Belsito DV, et al. (Cosmetic Ingredient Review). "Safety Assessment of Tocopherols and Tocotrienols as Used in Cosmetics." Int J Toxicol 37(2 Suppl):61S–94S (2018) An independent expert-panel safety review, not a comedogenicity study and not downstream of Fulton. Cited for two things only. It establishes that Tocopherol, Tocopheryl Acetate and Tocopheryl Linoleate are separate ingredients — separately assessed, separately used (the panel reports tocopherol at up to 5%, tocopheryl acetate at up to 36%, tocopheryl linoleate at up to 2%). And it concludes the group safe as used, reporting the irritation and sensitisation data; the positive patch tests against tocopheryl linoleate it attributes to a contaminant or metabolite. Safety and contact allergy are different questions from comedogenicity, and the report says nothing about pores.
- acne.org comedogenic ingredient list A republisher of the legacy rabbit-ear scores, not an independent measurement — the same description applies to CosDNA, Face Reality and Banish. Listed here because it is one of the places a reader meets a single tocopherol number, typically presented as a point rather than the 0–3 range Fulton actually printed, and sometimes with the assertion that the score belongs to a vegetable-oil carrier rather than the vitamin. We cite it as the origin of the circulating number, not as evidence for a rating.
Others in the same family
Antioxidants 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 2026-08-12 · How we decide