Coconut Oil May Promote Acne
Coconut oil is great for hair and some people apply it to their skin. But it seems like every time I see someone praising hydration with this substance, their next complaint is that they just need to figure out how to get rid of stubborn acne.
Friends, coconut oil has a comedogenic effect. This does not guarantee that you will have blackheads or acne – some people’s skin adjusts easily and doesn’t care. But if you have unexplained breakouts and you put coconut oil on your face , you might want to stop using coconut oil on your face .
“Comedogenic” means that a substance causes blackheads or whiteheads to appear in laboratory tests. These tests are done either on the ears of rabbits or on the backs of human volunteers, and in any case, we should take the verdict with a grain of salt. ( Lab Muffin gives a great explanation of these tests here .) Rabbit ears are very sensitive and often respond to things our skin is not doing. And even in human trials, there is a big difference between a substance that is applied under duct tape on a stranger’s back and massaged from time to time on your own acne-prone face.
Timing note: It takes a month to test a substance for comedogenicity on a human back, or two weeks on the more sensitive skin of rabbits. So if you start using coconut oil (or any new product) and everything is fine, but after a month you have blackheads and whiteheads as a result of what seems like an unrelated incident, the problem may not be in the end. related.
So if you are confident that coconut oil is working for you, feel free to use it. But if you’re trying to figure out the cause of your mysterious acne, try switching to less comedogenic oils like argan or jojoba.