One quick search about coconut oil and you'll find that it's a number four on the comedogenic scale — five being the highest. Read: it clogs the hell out of your pores. That said, it's a "safe ingredient," according to the EWG, when it comes to toxicity or being harmful to the skin, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. Biba de Sousa, an esthetician, is known for giving Miley Cyrus clear skin and has been passionate about breaking this newfound love of coconut oil as a skincare product for years.
"To any person who is mildly acne-prone, it will give you blackheads and inflamed acne," de Sousa said. She admits there are some beneficial properties of coconut oil, as it's a saturated fat, so it doesn't have mineral or essential acid content, which is helpful for building ceramides in the skin. Ceramides are lipids in the skin that bind it together, and as we age, we lose them, which weakens our skin and can result in dry, wrinkled, and rough-textured skin.