Last Updated on September 5th, 2020
By Dr. Jaggi Rao, MD, FRCPC, Double board-certified dermatologist
In the past, mineral oil has gotten a bad rap for causing pimples and acne – a widespread reputation that many people believed. However, new studies are showing some very different results. 🔬📚 According to researchers, there are different grades of mineral oils, and the one used in common skincare isn’t the type to cause pimples or acne.
Based on the new findings, skincare-grade mineral oil should not be on the list of comedogenic substances. For the uninitiated, a comedogenic substance is anything that can clog your pores and cause comedones, which are the everyday pimples we call blackheads and whiteheads. This “list” of comedogenic substances was created a long time ago to help people with troubled skin identify problem chemicals and ingredients that might make their acne worse. But when it comes to mineral oil in beauty care, the refined stuff shouldn’t be on the list.
In fact, mineral oil is often found in the ingredient list of noncomedogenic products. 📜✔️ These are skin care products that do not contain any pimple or acne-causing ingredients, and are highly recommended for people with acne-prone skin.
For the purpose of the study, 👩🏻⚕️👨🏽⚕️👩🏿⚕️ researchers tested for the comedogenic potential of various skin care products like make-up, lotions, and facial cleansers with mineral oil. The products had varying concentrations of the substance ranging from 0.5% to 30%. For a full review of the results, they can be found in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology.
The products with mineral oil were tested directly on human skin, and none of them produced a comedogenic response.
These products did not produce more pimples than the control substance used to compare the different test results. 💡 The only thing that did produce a comedogenic response was industrial-strength mineral oil, a stronger version of would usually be found in skincare products.
Researchers believe that popular marketing and press 🧨💥 are to blame for the widespread myth that mineral oil causes adverse skin effects, such as pimples, despite the fact that this is not true. That being said, mineral oil isn’t a cure for acne either.
For those who have skin issues, mineral oil as an ingredient in your skin care routine shouldn’t be your priority when it comes to choosing the right products. Instead, you should be more concerned with using products that are labelled as “noncomedogenic”.
Mineral oil, Paraffin, PEG, PPG, Propylene Glycol, Propanediol (from corn), Butylene Glycol, All Gycols, Any Waxes made from crude oil, Anything containing Ethynol, Etc.!!! Anything basically derived from Petroleum will cause heavy and manifested Acne brakeouts!!!! I know first-hand from my own horrific experiences!!!! My face and neck broke out so badly with heavy acne inflammation/dark acne marks, and had to suffer with pain/depression for 4.5 years because of this!!! I sometimes would even get breakouts on my chest and back too, and I didn't know why I kept on braking out after all these years, but thanks to God as the years had gone by--I was able to discover little by little what the root of the problem was!!!!! It is from all these bad crude petroleum chemicals used in our daily products from face to body!!!!! Horrifically they even use these petroleum ingredients in our foods and vitamins too as preservatives!!!! I remember once I took some vitamins that had Pentylene glycol in it's ingredients, after about half a year of taking it--my whole chest, back, and arms started to brake out with really bad acne!!!!! So horrifying!!! I didn't know why this was happening to me!!!! However once I had discovered what it was, and started using only natural products without all these bad petroleum chemicals in it-- my skin started to clear up finally after all these years!!!! I thought something was wrong with me after all these years, but in fact it was these nasty and toxic petroleum chemicals all along that was causing this to me!!!! These are all really bad/toxic and pore clogging ingredients to stay away from!!! Don't listen to the companies that are saying that it's safe and that it doesn't cause acne brakeouts!!! They are deceiving you!!! They just tell you these lies so that they could continue producing cheap costing products to gain more revenue for themselves!!!! :-(
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