What Makes a Pore-Clogging Ingredient Pore-Clogging? (Part 2)
Last time we covered the mechanism – how a pore-clogging ingredient doesn't plug your pore so much as convince your pore to plug itself. The process can take months.
We covered the thick, obvious offenders: oils, butters, and fatty esters, alcohols, and acids. These next three are less intuitive, which can make them harder to catch.
Pigments
What they do: Give makeup its color. Found in many blushes, bronzers, and lipsticks.
The ones to avoid: D&C red dyes 3, 17, 21, 30, 36
The ones that are fine: carmine, iron oxides, and plant-based dyes.
In part one, we covered how hair pomades were finally linked, in the mid-1940s, to the crops of whiteheads along people's hairlines. The same thing happened again a generation later – this time with blush. Dermatologists started noticing persistent low-grade breakouts in the cheek area on women who wore makeup daily, gave the pattern a name, acne cosmetica, and eventually traced a good share of it to the dyes in blushes.
Dr. Fulton found those synthetic dyes tested so badly that he used to tell patients to wear eyeshadow on their cheeks instead – because the same dyes were banned from eye products.
Surely they're not still using them? They are. Still FDA-approved, still widely used. It's also why cosmetic acne concentrates on the cheekbones, and why our makeup guides screen for them.
Surfactants
What they do: Clean your skin. They break down and lift away dirt, oil, makeup, and impurities so your actives can reach the skin.
The one to avoid: sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS).
The gentler cousin: sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) – a different ingredient, typically rated a 3 out of 5 on the comedogenic scale. Fine for a lot of people, but skip it if you're working toward clear skin for the first time.
Dr. Fulton tested SLS directly, and it came back comedogenic. But you may be wondering: if it rinses off in two minutes, does it matter? Yes. Frequency and irritation do the damage, not contact time.
SLS can sneak up on you in two additional places: your shampoo, which runs down your hairline and back every time you rinse, and your toothpaste, a common cause of breakouts around the mouth.
That said, don't declare war on all surfactants; some are acne-safe. Dr. Fulton formulated the cleansers in his line, Vivant Skincare, with ammonium lauryl sulfate. But if your barrier is struggling, sulfate-free options like Ultra Gentle Cleanser, Barrier Balance Creamy Cleanser, and Osmosis Purify can help. It may take two cleanses if you wear a lot of makeup or SPF, or a pass of micellar water first. Once your barrier has recovered, working a sulfate cleanser back in occasionally will boost your results.
Algae
What it does: Hydrates, calms, and adds antioxidant support. Some algae-derived compounds are genuinely anti-inflammatory, which is why you'll find them in products marketed for acne-prone skin.
The ones to avoid: Red algae, kelp, algae extract, seaweed extract.
Algae appears on virtually every pore-clogging list in circulation, but it doesn't formally appear in Dr. Fulton's testing. In his book, Acne Rx, Dr. Fulton specifically called out avoiding iodine-rich foods and supplements – including algae-based foods – as potential acne triggers. He did not identify algae-derived topical ingredients themselves as comedogenic. At the same time, many other aestheticians and skin professionals have seen algae-containing products trigger breakouts in real skin – and we have too. That's clinical evidence rather than controlled laboratory evidence.
So where does that leave you? Algae most likely isn't a make-or-break ingredient for clearing acne – there's nothing you'd miss by skipping it. If you're actively breaking out, scan for it and its many aliases. If you're clear and want to try something with algae in it, go ahead – just pay attention.
Two places people forget to look: makeup, which is full of marine extracts, and supplements. If you're getting breakouts out of nowhere and you've recently started a green powder or a new multivitamin, that's worth a scan too.
So now what?
Seven categories across two blogs. All of them have legitimate jobs in a formula, and in every category only a handful are actually a problem.
That's why we read ingredient decks instead of copying a list off the internet. And it's why the answer to "is this okay for me?" is often, "it depends."
Which is what we're here for. Bring us your labels.