Is Almond Oil Comedogenic?
Almond Oil is rated 2/5 in published comedogenicity lists — rated low-to-moderate.
Contested Source: Fulton 1989. Published values disagree or depend on grade and vehicle — the note says which value is shown and why. How we rate
Also appears on labels as
- prunus amygdalus dulcis oil
- sweet almond oil
- prunus amygdalus dulcis (sweet almond) oil
What it is
Sweet almond oil is an oleic-dominant kernel oil — typically two-thirds oleic acid with a meaningful linoleic share. It has been a massage and carrier-oil staple for centuries because it is mild, cheap, and spreads well.
Why it's rated 2/5
On the label
Appears as Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil. "Bitter almond" is a different material used for fragrance; the carrier oil on skincare labels is the sweet variety.
When this rating can't be trusted
The 2/5 describes the raw ingredient in a rabbit-ear assay, usually at 10% in propylene glycol. It cannot tell you how much is in your product (position on the label is the only clue), what the rest of the formula does to it, or how your skin responds. Finished products containing highly rated ingredients have tested non-comedogenic on human skin (Draelos & DiNardo, JAAD 2006).
Can the 2/5 rating for Almond Oil be trusted?
Contested Published values for this ingredient disagree, or depend on grade and vehicle — the note on the row says which value is shown and why. The disagreement itself is the finding: expect different lists to give different numbers. Source: Fulton 1989.
A 2 is worth knowing about, not a flag: the AAD 1989 consensus puts 0–2 in the range unlikely to clog human pores. Full reasoning and bibliography.
Where the rating comes from
Ratings on this site come from published comedogenicity literature in the Fulton 1989 lineage — the 0–5 tables compiled from ingredient testing and reproduced across dermatology reference lists since. Where values disagree: a named primary source (Fulton 1989) outranks later unattributed lists, so its value is shown and the others are disclosed in the note; where only compilation lists disagree, the higher-caution value is shown. We never publish an invented number, and we never present one as more certain than its source: every rating carries a confidence tier — established (primary-source value, no disagreement on record), single-source (only the reproduced compilation lists carry it), or contested (published values disagree or depend on grade and vehicle; the note says which value is shown and why). Ingredients we cannot match appear as “not in our database” — unmatched, not cleared: no published list we hold rates them under that name, and that is not a pass.
Our flag threshold follows the American Academy of Dermatology's Invitational Symposium on Comedogenicity (J Am Acad Dermatol 1989): substances scoring 0–2 in the rabbit-ear assay are unlikely to clog pores in humans, while scores above 2 warrant more caution — which is why this site flags 3/5 and up. Read the full methodology and bibliography.
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