Is dimethicone comedogenic?
Short answer
No concern found: No concern found in the included sourcesNo source included in this dataset reports a comedogenicity concern for dimethicone, and nothing in it supports the common claim that silicones suffocate skin or seal debris into pores either. The only citation on this record establishes ingredient identity, which is never treated here as evidence about comedogenicity. On the reviewed sources the question is open rather than answered.
Recorded as Dimethicone · dataset record dimethicone · reviewed 2026-08-06
What the evidence actually is
A reference or regulatory source rather than a study that measured comedogenicity. In this dataset that most often means the source establishes only that the name refers to a recognised cosmetic ingredient.
What the sources report
A recognised cosmetic ingredient. No source included in this dataset reports a comedogenicity concern for it.
What this does not cover
This states only that the included sources raised no concern for this name. The corpus is small, so this is not a finding of proven non-comedogenicity, and it says nothing about the finished product.
Why people ask about Dimethicone
Dimethicone carries the reputation of silicones as a class. The claim in circulation is that it forms an occlusive film that seals the skin and traps sebum and debris beneath it, and that claim is usually made without a citation attached. It is also extremely common — in moisturisers, primers, foundations and hair products — so it is one of the names people notice first when they start reading labels.
Where the circulating rating for Dimethicone comes from
Dimethicone usually appears at or near zero on the 0–5 scale, which sits oddly beside the strength of the anti-silicone claim it attracts. The same ingredient is described as maximally pore-safe by one convention and as actively suffocating by another, and this project could not verify either position from the sources it reviewed. A rating of zero is not a finding of safety here, and the suffocation claim is not a finding of harm. Neither is traceable to a checkable assessment in this corpus.
Names Dimethicone appears under
Declared as Dimethicone, and also as polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS or — on many European labels — Dimeticone. Cyclopentasiloxane, dimethiconol and the various silicone crosspolymers are different declared materials. Cyclopentasiloxane has its own record in this dataset; the others are not in it.
Recognised in this dataset as Dimethicone, and through the recorded aliases polydimethylsiloxane, pdms, dimeticone. Matching is exact: there is no fuzzy matching anywhere in this tool, so a name not listed here is reported as unrecognised rather than guessed at.
Questions about dimethicone
Do silicones clog pores?
Nothing in the sources reviewed here reports that they do. That is not the same as a finding that they do not — this dataset contains no comedogenicity assessment of dimethicone in either direction, and the claim circulates far more widely than any citation supporting it.
Is dimethicone the same as cyclopentasiloxane?
No. They are separate declared ingredients with separate records here. Both are silicones, but this project does not carry a result from one ingredient across to another on the strength of a shared family.
Sources cited on this page
These are the sources attached to this record. Nothing on this page is drawn from anything else.
Cosmetic ingredient database (CosIng)
European Commission, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, 2026. Regulator.
Used only to establish that an INCI name refers to a recognised cosmetic ingredient. Presence in CosIng does not mean an ingredient is approved, safe, or non-comedogenic, and this dataset never treats an identity citation as evidence about comedogenicity.
Record reviewed 2026-08-06 by pore-checker prototype dataset compilation (not clinically reviewed).