Hexadecyl Alcohol
Hexadecyl alcohol is rated 5 on our list, in the high 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.
Hexadecyl alcohol and cetyl alcohol are two names for 1-hexadecanol. Our list carries both names as separate rows. It rates hexadecyl alcohol 5 and cetyl alcohol 2. The numbers do not overlap, so at least one of them is wrong.
The papers we read grade it 2 in Fulton 1989. No paper we read gives the 5 for hexadecyl alcohol. The 2 for cetyl alcohol matches the grade in Fulton 1989. The list records no source for either number.
Is hexadecyl alcohol comedogenic?
Hexadecyl Alcohol is rated 5 on the comedogenic scale, which is the high band. The rabbit-ear studies we have read give it less: Fulton 1989 gave it 2 (the same substance). Our list's 5 is above all of them.
Another name for cetyl alcohol, a fatty alcohol used to thicken and stabilize products. Our list rates the same substance 2 under the name cetyl alcohol.
- Comedogenic rating
- 5 out of 5
- Band
- High: Clear plugging in the rabbit-ear test. The first band to check in a leave-on product.
- Where the number comes from
- Traced to Fulton 1989. The section on who rated it prints each grade.
- Composition
- Alcohols & Derivatives
- Also written as
- No common variants recorded
What a 5 means in practice
A 4 or 5 is the top of the scale. In the rabbit-ear test, Fulton 1989 counted 4 to 5 as a clear positive: the ingredient plugged the follicles, and did so repeatably. A person's skin reacts less readily than a rabbit's ear, and a product holds far less of the ingredient than the test did, so treat this band as the first thing to check in anything that stays on your skin. It does not prove the ingredient will cause a breakout. A rinse-off product is on the skin for seconds.
Two things change what this number is worth. Ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration, so hexadecyl alcohol near the top of a label matters far more than hexadecyl 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 is one band above the research. Our list gives hexadecyl alcohol 5. Fulton 1989 gave it 2 (the same substance). We report the list as it stands and show the papers beside it. Where the list and the research disagree.
Our list gives hexadecyl alcohol 5. 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 Cetyl alcohol (the same substance) |
Our list's top figure, 5, is higher than anything in these papers.
Common questions
- Is hexadecyl alcohol comedogenic?
- Hexadecyl Alcohol is rated 5 on the comedogenic scale, which is the high band. The rabbit-ear studies we have read give it less: Fulton 1989 gave it 2 (the same substance). Our list's 5 is above all of them.
- Is hexadecyl alcohol non comedogenic?
- No. Hexadecyl Alcohol is rated 5 on the comedogenic scale, which is the high band. That is the number on our list; the papers we read grade it lower (see Who rated it).
- What is hexadecyl alcohol's comedogenic rating?
- 5 out of 5 on our list. It is classed as Alcohols & Derivatives. The rabbit-ear studies we have read give it less: Fulton 1989 gave it 2 (the same substance). Our list's 5 is above all of them.
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.”