How to read a Korean ingredient list
The front of a Korean skincare box is marketing. The ingredient list on the back is a regulated document, written in a naming system that is identical in Seoul and in New York,...
Korean Pharmacy
The Journal
Guides and notes on buying authentic Korean-market skincare in the United States.
Vitamin C in a Korean Formula: 13, 23 and the Derivative Route
If you want the short answer: buy the 13, not the 23. COSRX The Vitamin C 13 Serum and Advanced The Vitamin C 23 Serum both declare pure L-ascorbic acid straight in the ingredient...
Collagen at 243 Daltons and the Mask That Dissolves
The collagen in a collagen mask is not replacing the collagen in your skin, and the good ones are not pretending to.
Snail mucin by the percentage: 96, 92, 74.3, 72, and what the number is doing
The percentage on a COSRX snail product tells you how much of the formula is snail secretion filtrate.
Olive Young stopped shipping to the US: what changed and where to buy now
If Olive Young Global stopped letting you check out with a US address, you did not do anything wrong and the site is not broken.
How to prove the bottle in your hand came from Seoul
There is no single way to verify Korean skincare, and any site that gives you one universal instruction is guessing.
Toner is not astringent: what a Korean toner is for and how the good ones differ
A Korean toner is a hydrating step, not an astringent. The word means two completely different products in the two markets: in American English a toner is historically...
Building a Korean skincare routine your barrier can actually tolerate
The Korean routine has four jobs, not ten steps: clean, hydrate, treat, seal. Everything else is an optional extra inserted into one of those four.
Centella, cica, madecassoside and TECA: four words, one plant, four different products
Centella, cica, madecassoside and TECA are four words for the same plant at four different levels of refinement, and they are not interchangeable.
PDRN in Korean skincare: what salmon DNA is doing in your toner
PDRN is polydeoxyribonucleotide: short, fragmented strands of DNA, in cosmetics almost always purified from salmon milt. On a Korean ingredient list it is rarely spelled out.
Korean formulas and US formulas, what actually differs
The most common reason people seek out Korean-market skincare is a belief that the version sold in Seoul is different from the version sold in the United States.
How to read the batch code on your Korean skincare
Every Korean skincare box carries a short production code, stamped or inked somewhere on the packaging alongside the barcode. It tells you when the unit was made.
