What no one told you about the labels of your Korean beauty products

Videos

Video: What no one told you about the labels of your Korean beauty products

What’s behind your Korean Beauty products? In this video I’ll break down for you what exactly goes in the label of Korean beauty products, how to decode the ingredient list of your favourite cosmetics and why a product with the same formula can be labelled in different ways across the world.

DISCLAIMER

I translated all facts and contents in this video from original Korean sources, so I kindly ask you to credit my work if you’re planning to use any of the information included in the video.

The list above contains a combination of affiliate and non-affiliate links. For more information on my affiliate policy please refer to my About page. Some links are missing because the item is not available outside of Korea at the moment.

Remember to subscribe to my youtube channel for the latest K-Beauty insights!

TAGS:ingredient list korean beauty products korean cosmetic labelling regulations korean cosmetic regulations korean skincare videos

Author:

Odile

Art Director working in beauty. I've been researching the Korean Beauty Industry for over a decade, and on my social channels I translate and make informative content on Korean Beauty trends and history.

Leave a Comment Cancel Comment

Top-selling Korean Beauty products in March 2021, in South Korea

Next Post

Top-selling Korean Beauty products in April 2021, in South Korea

odilemonod

•

Follow

🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) Can you tell which of these textures belong to a serum, which ones are essences and which ones are ampoules? I bet you can't. One of the (many) reasons why I'm so vocally against the myth of the "10 Step Korean Skincare Routine" is that it’s based on the premise that there's a standard for product nomenclature, when actually that is not the case. Companies decide to call a product "essence" / "serum" / "ampoule" etc according to how they would like customers to perceive the product. In other words: a name is just another advertising tool we advertisers use to make you interested in a product, just like a fancy packaging. Some websites will tell you that serums are usually more "concentrated" than essences, but that is a very ambiguous statement. Two different products might be labelled as "100% XYZ Plant Extract" but since you can't possibly know how much water goes into an extract, one product could be made of 98% water, while the other could be made of 80% water and still be labelled the same way. Likewise, a more viscous texture is not necessarily a sign of a "higher concentration". So what's the point of talking about "different concentrations"? Unlike what some foreign K-Beauty retailers claim, essences, serums and ampoules are considered equivalent products in Korea: liquid skincare treatments created to target a specific skin concern. This is why on the vast majority of beauty online shops in Korea, you will see these products in the same category (slide 3). Incidentally, this also means that you don't ~need~ to use all these products, just find a product with a formula and a texture you like and run with it! If you want to use multiple of these products, just remember to start from the one with the highest water content. A bonus trivia on this topic: did you know that @sulwhasoo.official 's iconic "First Care Activating Serum" is actually marketed as an essence in Korea? The brand decided to adopt the English name "Serum" because at the time the concept of "essence" was still new to the foreign audience. #rasianbeauty #kbeautyaddict #abcommunity #koreancosmetics #cosmeticacoreana #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecorea

2 weeks ago

View on Instagram |
1/10
odilemonod

•

Follow

🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) An interesting Korean beauty trend that was accelerated by the pandemic is 'home-aesthetic', the practice of enjoying professional beauty treatments at home (or trying, at least 😂) after social distancing lead many people to refrain from visiting aesthetic clinics on a regular basis. The trend involved skincare (with modelling masks and professional devices becoming a huge topic last year), makeup (with eyebrow lamination kits, eyelash extension kits and the likes), but it was especially noticeable in nail care, with the rising popularity of convenient (and amateur-friendly!) at-home gel manicure kits. Believe it or not I used to be really invested in nail art, but good old corona blues made me lose all motivation to take care of my nails. However, recently I gave the Speedy Gel kits by @wakemake_official a try to cheer myself up from a stressful period, and it felt really great to reconnect with my old passion. They're sets of nail stickers that harden like gel polish under a UV lamp. They come in boxes of 28 pieces (so you can use them at least twice, even more if you only replace some pieces), you just have to peel off the stickers, place them on your nail, cut them and let them sit under a UV lamp for 1 minute and that's it! The kit I'm wearing in this picture is "#12 Chic Marble Blue". #스피디젤네일 #올리브영 #웨이크메이크 #올리브영추천템 #젤네일추천 #젤네일스티커 #koreanbeautyproduct #koreanmakeup #cosmeticacoreana #skincarecoreana

3 weeks ago

View on Instagram |
1/10
odilemonod

•

Follow

🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) You probably heard of "probiotic skincare" and how it has recently taken #kbeauty by storm, but not many people know that probiotic skincare is more than just a temporary fad in Korea. South Korea is arguably the country that is currently investing the most in research involving the skin microbiome (a beneficial ecosystem of microorganisms inhabiting the skin) and the topical application of (inactivated) probiotics. A Korean cosmetic manufacturer called Cosmax (@cosmax_people) in particular, made the headlines around the world for their outstanding work around the skin microbiome that opened the door for a new approach to skincare. After being the first in the world to discover a link between the skin microbiome and the process of skin aging, in a study titled "Spermidine-induced recovery of human dermal structure and barrier function by skin microbiome", last month the manufacturer opened the world's first "Microbiome Platform Research Centre" with two goals in mind: ▪ Map the skin microbial genome of the human population according to country and race ▪ Use artificial intelligence to analyse this data and create custom cosmetics You can see their work in action in the new Red Blemish Cica Soothing Cream developed for @dr.g_official. Compared to their bestselling "Red Blemish Clear Soothing Cream" (another Cosmax formula), this cream was especially created to support skin barrier function based on Cosmax's research on the skin microbiome. The star ingredient of the product is “Centella Biome”, a patented biome culture jointly developed by Dr.G and Cosmax using Centella Asiatica from Jeju Island. Although it's too early for me to tell you about the long term results of the product, I must say I was truly impressed by the improved soothing properties of the formula. The cream contains 5x the amount of Dr.G's signature 5-Cica Complex compared to their standard Clear Soothing Cream and I could immediately tell from the first application, because this cream relives redness in the blink of an eye and I mean it. [I won the product through a competition of their Korean website] #닥터지 #닥터지체험단 #닥터지레드블레미쉬 #레드블레미쉬시카수딩크림 #병풀바이옴수분크림 #수분크림

3 weeks ago

View on Instagram |
1/10
odilemonod

•

Follow

🇬🇧 Fair skin has always been seen as a beauty ideal in South Korea, but did you know that for a brief period of time that goes from the second half of the 1970s until the early 90s, sporting a tan or dark(ish) skin was considered chic and fashionable? After the Korean War, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world for almost a decade, until a rapid economic growth during the 1960s and the 1970s. At the end of the 1970s, some well-off Koreans could afford to go on exotic holidays for the first time, leading sun tans to quickly become a symbol of wealth and leisure. The trend was short-lived, but it's nice looking back at a different aspect of Korean Beauty. In the main picture, the 1983 summer campaign from Amore Revital. 🇮🇹 La pelle candida è da sempre considerata l'ideale di bellezza predominante in Corea del Sud, ma sapevate che per un breve periodo di tempo che va dalla seconda metà degli anni '70 fino agli inizi degli anni '90, avere la pelle scura (o quasi) ed essere abbronzati era considerato chic e alla moda? Dopo la guerra di Corea, la Corea del Sud rimase uno dei paesi più poveri del mondo per quasi un decennio, fino alla rapida crescita economica evvenuta negli anni '60 e '70. Alla fine degli anni '70, alcuni coreani più agiati potevano permettersi per la prima volta di andare in vacanza in destinazioni esotiche, e questo rese l'abbronzatura un simbolo di ricchezza e prosperità. La tendenza ebbe vita breve, ma è interessante guardare la cosmetica coreana da un aspetto così differente da quello a cui siamo abituati. Nell'immagine principale, la campagna pubblicitaria estiva del 1983 del marchio Amore Revital. #korea🇰🇷 #KoreanRetroSaturday #vintagemagazine #imagineyourkorea #seoulsearching #koreatravel #wheninkorea #koreabyme #ig_korea #koreanculture #한국사 #explorekorea #koreanhistory #koreanbeauty #koreancosmetics #kbeautylover #koreanskincare #kbeautyblogger #Hyangjang #amorepacific #historylovers #abbeatthealgorithm #abcommunity #culturacoreana #linguacoreana #coreadelsud #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecoreana #cosmesicoreana

4 weeks ago

View on Instagram |
1/10