What is Karanja Oil?
Karanja Oil (INCI name: Pongamia Glabra Seed Oil) is a plant- or seed-derived oil. A dark Indian seed oil closely related to neem in traditional use, containing karanjin and often added to natural sun-care and scalp products. It is named on the CLEARSTEM pore-clogging ingredient list, but that list does not publish a 0-5 comedogenic score for it and no Fulton-derived table we cite carries one. We therefore leave it unrated rather than invent a number — treat the listing itself as the signal.
You may see it on labels as Karanja Oil, Pongamia Glabra Seed Oil, Pongamia Pinnata Seed Oil, Pongamia Oil, so it can hide under more than one name in an ingredient list.
Where Karanja Oil shows up
You'll most often find Karanja Oil in facial oils, cleansing balms, moisturisers, hair products, and many products marketed as natural.
Is Karanja Oil bad for acne-prone skin?
Because no reliable comedogenic score exists for Karanja Oil, judge it by how your own skin responds rather than by a number.
Worth flagging: Karanja Oil's rating is disputed. Credible sources land on different numbers, which is why we show a range rather than a single score — and why your own experience is the best tiebreaker.
Note for fungal-acne (malassezia) sufferers: Karanja Oil is commonly avoided in fungal-acne routines, since it falls into the fatty-acid or ester families the yeast can feed on. The evidence there is looser than for comedogenicity — see our fungal-acne checker for context.