Sulfated Coconut Oil
Explained
Sulfated Coconut Oil is a coconut oil that's been reacted with sulfuric acid and then neutralized to stick sulfate groups onto the fatty acids. It's officially listed as a cleansing agent and surfactant.
The practical effect is that a normally water-hating oil becomes water-dispersible. This makes it behave like a mild anionic (negatively charged) detergent and self-emulsifier rather than like a modern foaming sulfate such as SLS.
There's no specific concentration data for this ingredient but the wider alkyl-sulfate family is reported in cosmetics at roughly 0.1-29%.
As for fungal acne, this ingredient may not be safe. It keeps coconut's C12-18 fatty acid backbone that the Malassezia yeast can potentially feed on.
A genuine allergy to this ingredient is uncommon; a double-blind patch-test study of eleven coconut-derived surfactants plus coconut oil + lauric acid found that most reactions in cocamidopropyl-betaine-allergic patients weren't reproducible and were only doubtful.
The only downside is ordinary surfactant behavior: possible dryness, stinging or eye irritation if a formula is unbalanced.
Is it comedogenic?
This ingredient shows up on a lot of "pore-clogging" lists but there's no real evidence behind that. It doesn't even have a comedogenic rating from an actual study; the numbers you'll find online come from blogs citing other blogs.
Ratings for other ingredients mostly come from a 1980s rabbit ear test. This test doesn't translate well to human skin or to real products because the ingredient sits at a much lower percentage.
Some people still find it breaks them out. So if that's you, definitely trust your skin.
See all 23 products with Sulfated Coconut Oil
