Cetearyl Alcohol
Cetearyl alcohol (INCI name Cetearyl Alcohol) is rated 2 on our list, in the low band, and the number is traced: Fulton 1989 graded it 2.
Like every rating here, it is for the raw ingredient tested alone, and a label does not print how much of it a product holds.
Is cetearyl alcohol comedogenic?
Cetearyl Alcohol is rated 2 on the comedogenic scale, which is the low band.
A mixture of fatty alcohols used to soften skin and thicken creams (not a drying alcohol).
- Comedogenic rating
- 2 out of 5
- Band
- Low: Little plugging in the rabbit-ear test. Fulton 1989 counts 0 to 1 as not significant and 2 as borderline.
- Where the number comes from
- Traced to Fulton 1989. The section on who rated it prints each grade.
- Composition
- Fatty Alcohol / Alcohols & Derivatives
- Also written as
- No common variants recorded
What a 2 means in practice
One and two are the low band. In the rabbit-ear test, Fulton 1989 counted 0 to 1 as not significant and 2 as borderline. A low grade on a rabbit's ear, which reacts more readily than human skin, is weak evidence of a problem on a person.
Two things change what this number is worth. Ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration, so cetearyl alcohol near the top of a label matters far more than cetearyl alcohol at the bottom. And the rating describes the raw ingredient on its own. A 2006 review in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that a rating for a single ingredient does not reliably predict how a finished formula behaves on human skin. The full story of the scale is here.
Who rated it
Our list gives cetearyl alcohol 2. These are the figures the published rabbit-ear studies we have read give it, as printed in each paper's table.
| Paper | Grade | Tested as |
|---|---|---|
| Fulton 1989 | Grade 2 | Tested as Cetearyl alcohol |
Our list's figure is within what these papers report.
Similar names, rated separately
These share a source with cetearyl alcohol or carry it in their name, and each has its own rating on our list. The 2 on this page does not carry over to them, so check the exact name on the label.
Where cetearyl alcohol comes up on this site
What safety reviewers say
The rating above is about pore plugging in a rabbit-ear test. Whether cetearyl alcohol is safe to use in cosmetics is a separate question. Below is the conclusion of the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR), a US expert panel, and what the EU ingredient database, CosIng, lists for it. We quote CIR's conclusion as written, read on 31 October 2026.
- Cosmetic Ingredient Review (US)
- In 1988 the panel concluded that cetearyl alcohol and four related fatty alcohols are “safe as cosmetic ingredients in the present practices of use”. A re-review published in 2008 confirmed that and did not reopen the assessment. Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Cetearyl Alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, Isostearyl Alcohol, Myristyl Alcohol, and Behenyl Alcohol, 1988 (opens in a new tab) ; 2005/2006 re-review, published 2008 (opens in a new tab)
- Pore plugging in the same report
- Summarising earlier reviews of related ingredients, the 1988 report says long-chain aliphatic alcohols “induced minimal ocular and skin irritation but no sensitization or comedogenicity in rabbits”.
- What it does in a product (EU CosIng)
- Listed as CETEARYL ALCOHOL: skin conditioning (emollient), surfactant (emulsifying), emulsion stabilising, surfactant (foam boosting), opacifying, surfactant (cleansing), viscosity controlling. CosIng entry (opens in a new tab)
- EU restrictions
- None. CosIng shows no entry for it in the annexes of the EU Cosmetics Regulation.
What we make of this. CIR's conclusion does not grade pore plugging, so on its own it neither confirms nor contradicts the 2 on our list. The report does print one pore-plugging result, quoted above, and we give it as one more data point beside our rating. A safety review looks at things like irritation, allergy and toxicity at the amounts products use, and the rating is only about pores, so read them side by side.
Common questions
- Is cetearyl alcohol comedogenic?
- Cetearyl Alcohol is rated 2 on the comedogenic scale, which is the low band.
- Is cetearyl alcohol non comedogenic?
- Not exactly. Cetearyl Alcohol is rated 2, which is the low band rather than 0. Low and non-comedogenic are different things, and only a 0 means the second one.
- What is cetearyl alcohol's comedogenic rating?
- 2 out of 5 on our list. It is classed as Fatty Alcohol / Alcohols & Derivatives.
Sources we checked this rating against
- Kligman AM, Kwong T. “An improved rabbit ear model for assessing comedogenic substances.” British Journal of Dermatology, June 1979;100(6):699–702. (opens in a new tab) The rabbit-ear assay behind published 0 to 5 comedogenicity grades.
- Fulton JE Jr. “Comedogenicity and irritancy of commonly used ingredients in skin care products.” Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists, November/December 1989;40(6):321–333. (opens in a new tab) Rabbit ear. Each ingredient at 10 percent in propylene glycol unless stated, applied five days a week for two weeks, and graded 0 to 5 from the width of the follicles, measured by micrometer and under the microscope. The paper counts 0 to 1 as not significant, 2 to 3 as borderline and 4 to 5 as positive. Some grades depended on the supplier of the raw material, and some oils were also tested refined.
- Draelos ZD, DiNardo JC. “A re-evaluation of the comedogenicity concept.” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, March 2006;54(3):507–512. doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2005.11.1058 (opens in a new tab) Tested finished products on the backs of six people and concluded that “Finished products using comedogenic ingredients are not necessarily comedogenic.”