Isopropyl Palmitate
Emollient ester · INCI: Isopropyl Palmitate
Reviewed by Elysiana Aguilar, master esthetician
How we read it
Known to clog pores. If you break out easily, this is the one to skip.
Is Isopropyl Palmitate comedogenic?
Yes. Isopropyl Palmitate is a known pore-clogging ingredient, and we read it as highly comedogenic. If you're acne-prone, it's worth avoiding, especially when it sits near the top of an ingredient list.
Why we read it this way
Isopropyl palmitate is a light ester used to make a formula absorb fast and feel silky rather than greasy. It and its close relative isopropyl myristate are among the most consistently flagged ingredients on the references we curate against, and we read it the same way.
The nuance
How much is in a product matters here. A small amount low in an ingredient list is a different proposition from an ester sitting in the top five, where it is doing most of the texture work.
Related ingredients
One ingredient rarely tells the whole story. The acne ingredient checker reads everything in a product at once, the pore-clogging ingredients list has the rest of what we flag, and there is more on what comedogenic means. Also in the guides: What causes acne.