Is Coal Tar safe in skincare?

What it is

Coal tar is a traditional active used in some medicated shampoos and psoriasis treatments, and historically as a dye component. Its cosmetic use is now heavily restricted.

What the sources say

Coal tar is classified by IARC as carcinogenic (Group 1 for certain coal-tar exposures) and its use in EU cosmetics is banned or tightly restricted; where permitted, it is as a regulated medicinal product for specific scalp conditions, not a general cosmetic.

Hazard vs. real-world risk

The carcinogen classification rests on high, sustained occupational exposures, not on regulated medicinal shampoo used as directed. Because general cosmetic use is restricted, you would meet it (if at all) as a controlled medicinal product with its own guidance.

Vegan & cruelty-free angle

Coal-derived; typically vegan, but the flag is its carcinogen classification and restriction.

Three pillars, kept separate

Clarra reads three distinct things and refuses to blend them into one misleading score: what a product's ingredient list flags, whether the brand is cruelty-free, and whether the formula is vegan. Keeping them separate matters — a product can be vegan but worth checking on testing policy, or cruelty-free but not vegan. One number would hide all of that; three clear pillars don't.

What Clarra reads on every product

• Ingredient flags — how named regulators (EU CosIng, IARC, Prop 65, CIR, ECHA) classify or restrict what's inside, with hazard kept separate from risk.
• Cruelty-free status — shown with positive framing: what a brand states or is certified for, never an accusation.
• Vegan status — flagging animal-derived ingredients like carmine, beeswax and lanolin, and honest about ambiguous-source ones.