Is Shea Butter Comedogenic?
Shea Butter is rated 0/5 in published comedogenicity lists — rated low on published lists.
Single-source Source: compilation. Only the reproduced compilation lists carry this number; not verified against the original table. How we rate
Also appears on labels as
- butyrospermum parkii butter
- butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter
What it is
Shea butter is the fat of the shea tree nut — dominated by stearic and oleic acids, with an unusually large unsaponifiable fraction (the non-fat portion that includes triterpenes). It is solid at room temperature and melts at skin temperature, which gives it the rich, buttery feel.
Why it's rated 0/5
This is the classic counterexample to "rich = pore-clogging": published lists rate shea butter 0. Stearic-oleic triglycerides simply did not produce comedones in the assay lineage, however heavy the butter feels. It's the same lesson in reverse as castor oil — texture is not comedogenicity.
On the label
Appears as Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter. Refined and unrefined grades share the label name and the rating. Common at high percentages in body butters and as a mid-list emollient in facial creams.
When this rating can't be trusted
The 0/5 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 0/5 rating for Shea Butter be trusted?
Single-source This number comes only from reproduced compilation lists and has not been verified against the original table. Treat it as a screening signal from a copied list, not a measurement you can cite. Source: compilation.
A low number does not certify a product: a formula can still clog pores through its other ingredients or their combination. 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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