What is Papaya Seed Oil?
Papaya Seed Oil (INCI name: Carica Papaya Seed Oil) is a plant- or seed-derived oil. An oleic-rich oil pressed from papaya seeds, often paired in marketing with the fruit's papain enzyme even though the pressed oil carries little of it. It is named on the CLEARSTEM and AcneClinicNYC pore-clogging ingredient lists, but neither publishes 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 Papaya Seed Oil, Carica Papaya Seed Oil, Pawpaw Seed Oil, so it can hide under more than one name in an ingredient list.
Where Papaya Seed Oil shows up
You'll most often find Papaya Seed Oil in facial oils, cleansing balms, moisturisers, hair products, and many products marketed as natural.
Is Papaya Seed Oil bad for acne-prone skin?
Because no reliable comedogenic score exists for Papaya Seed Oil, judge it by how your own skin responds rather than by a number.
Worth flagging: Papaya Seed 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: Papaya Seed 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.