Does Coffee or Caffeine Make Acne Worse?

This question comes up a lot, and I understand why. You start drinking coffee regularly, you notice your skin acting up, and you wonder if the two are connected. Plus there's no shortage of wellness influencers telling you to quit caffeine for clear skin.

So let's look at what we actually know, because the answer is more nuanced than "yes" or "no."

What the research actually says

Here's the thing: there isn't much. The direct research on caffeine and acne is surprisingly thin. You'd think someone would have run a definitive study by now, given how much coffee the world drinks, but we don't have a large randomized controlled trial showing that caffeine consumption causes or worsens acne.

What we have is indirect evidence and plausible mechanisms. That's not nothing, but it's also not the same as proof.

Caffeine is a stimulant. It affects your hormones, your stress response, your sleep, and your blood sugar. All of those things connect to skin health. But connecting A to B to C to acne is a longer chain of reasoning than most clickbait articles acknowledge.

The cortisol angle

This is the most common argument for why caffeine might affect acne, and it has some basis.

Caffeine stimulates your adrenal glands to produce cortisol. A 2006 study in Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior confirmed that caffeine intake increases cortisol levels, particularly in response to stress. Cortisol is your stress hormone, and elevated cortisol can increase sebum production in the skin.

More sebum means more clogged pores means more breakouts. In theory.

But here's the catch. The cortisol spike from a cup of coffee is temporary and relatively modest, especially if you're a regular coffee drinker (your body adapts). Chronic, sustained cortisol elevation from genuine ongoing stress is a different animal than the bump you get from your morning cup. The people who get acne from cortisol are usually dealing with prolonged stress, sleep deprivation, or medical conditions, not just drinking coffee.

Could caffeine be a contributing factor if you're already stressed and not sleeping well? Maybe. Is it the primary driver? I doubt it.

The real culprit: sugar and dairy

Here's where the conversation gets more honest.

Most teens aren't drinking black coffee. They're drinking a Starbucks Caramel Frappuccino with whipped cream. That drink has about 50 grams of sugar and a significant amount of dairy. A Dunkin' Iced Caramel Latte isn't much better.

The connection between high-glycemic foods and acne has actual evidence behind it. A 2007 randomized controlled trial by Smith et al. found that a low-glycemic-load diet reduced acne lesions compared to a control group. The mechanism is straightforward: sugar spikes blood glucose, which spikes insulin and IGF-1, which increases sebum production and inflammation.

The connection between dairy and acne is also supported by research. A 2005 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found a positive association between dairy intake and acne in teenage subjects. The proposed mechanism involves hormones naturally present in milk (including IGF-1 and androgens) that can stimulate oil production.

So when someone says "I quit coffee and my skin cleared up," I always want to ask: what kind of coffee were you drinking? Because if you went from a daily Frappuccino to water, you didn't just eliminate caffeine. You eliminated a daily dose of sugar and dairy. And those are far more likely to be the culprits.

Energy drinks are worse than coffee

If coffee is a gray area, energy drinks are closer to a problem.

A can of Monster has about 54 grams of sugar (unless you get sugar-free). A Red Bull has 27 grams. Bang and Celsius are sugar-free, but they pack 200-300mg of caffeine and often include high doses of B vitamins.

Excess B12 and B6 supplementation has been linked to acne-like breakouts in some research. A 2015 study in Science Translational Medicine found that B12 supplementation altered the gene expression of skin bacteria in ways that promoted acne. Energy drinks that megadose B vitamins could theoretically contribute to this.

Combine the sugar, the caffeine, the B vitamins, and the fact that many teens are drinking these on insufficient sleep, and you have a cocktail that's more likely to affect skin than plain coffee.

Green tea is a different story

Here's an interesting twist. Green tea contains caffeine (about 25-50mg per cup, versus 95mg in coffee). But it also contains epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a polyphenol with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

A 2013 study in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology found that EGCG reduced sebum production and inhibited the growth of P. acnes bacteria. The effect was measured in human subjects, not just in a lab dish.

This doesn't mean green tea is an acne cure. But it suggests that the caffeine in green tea comes packaged with compounds that may actually benefit acne-prone skin, which is the opposite of what caffeine fearmongers would have you believe.

If you're looking for a caffeinated drink that's least likely to affect your skin, unsweetened green tea is probably your best bet.

The practical answer

I think the honest answer looks something like this:

Black coffee is probably fine. One to two cups a day, without sugar or cream, is unlikely to meaningfully affect your acne. The cortisol effect is temporary and your body adapts to regular intake.

A Frappuccino is basically a milkshake. If you're drinking sugary, dairy-heavy coffee drinks daily, the sugar and dairy are much more likely to be contributing to your breakouts than the caffeine.

Energy drinks are the worst option. High sugar, high caffeine, B vitamin megadoses. If you're drinking these regularly and breaking out, cutting them is a reasonable first step.

Green tea might actually help. The EGCG content has anti-inflammatory properties that could benefit acne-prone skin. Worth trying as a swap.

Don't sacrifice sleep for caffeine. If you're using caffeine to compensate for poor sleep, that's a problem. Sleep deprivation raises cortisol far more than caffeine does, and it impairs skin healing. Fix the sleep first.

Bottom line

Caffeine itself is probably not a major acne trigger for most people. The evidence just isn't there to support that claim. What is more likely: the sugar, dairy, and other additives in popular coffee drinks and energy drinks are contributing to breakouts. Black coffee is fine. Sugary lattes are basically dessert. Energy drinks are the worst of all worlds. If you want to test whether your coffee habit is affecting your skin, switch to black coffee or green tea for a month instead of quitting caffeine entirely. That'll give you a cleaner answer.