Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES)
Sodium Laureth Sulfate is rated 3 on the comedogenic scale, which is the moderate risk band.
A common, less-irritating foaming cleanser used in face washes and shampoos.
- Comedogenic rating
- 3 out of 5
- Band
- Moderate risk: The tipping point. A real chance of comedones in leave-on products.
- Composition
- Surfactant / Cleanser / Detergents
- Also written as
- No common variants recorded
What a 3 means in practice
Three is the tipping point on this scale. It does not usually cause an immediate spot, but it is where a slow build-up inside the pore starts to show up over weeks in a leave-on product.
Two things change what this number is worth. Ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration, so sodium laureth sulfate near the top of a label matters far more than sodium laureth sulfate 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.
Others in the same family
Common questions
- Is sodium laureth sulfate comedogenic?
- Sodium Laureth Sulfate is rated 3 on the comedogenic scale, which is the moderate risk band.
- Is sodium laureth sulfate non comedogenic?
- No. Sodium Laureth Sulfate is rated 3 on the comedogenic scale, which is the moderate risk band. That is a published rating for the ingredient rather than a verdict on any product containing it.
- What is sodium laureth sulfate's comedogenic rating?
- 3 out of 5. It is classed as Surfactant / Cleanser / Detergents.
Sources for this rating
- 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 that produced most of the 0–5 numbers still quoted today.
- Fulton JE Jr, Pay SR, Fulton JE 3rd. “Comedogenicity of current therapeutic products, cosmetics, and ingredients in the rabbit ear.” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, January 1984;10(1):96–105. (opens in a new tab) The published ingredient-by-ingredient ratings that most comedogenic lists, including this one, trace back to.
- 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) Found that animal-model results did not reliably predict what happened on human skin, and that a rating for a single ingredient does not tell you how a finished product will behave.