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. Centella asiatica is the plant. Cica is a marketing contraction with no legal or chemical definition, which is why it can appear on a product containing almost none of the plant. Madecassoside, along with asiaticoside, asiatic acid and madecassic acid, is one of four isolated triterpenes purified out of that plant, and they behave differently from each other. TECA is the pharmaceutical-grade titrated extract in which those triterpenes are standardised to a fixed ratio. Of the 3,386 ingredient lists we hold, counted on 12 September 2026, 1,333 carry centella in some form and 343 carry all four isolated triterpenes. The gap between those two numbers is the whole subject of this article.

What is centella asiatica, and why is it in everything Korean?

Centella asiatica is a low creeping herb, known in English as gotu kola and in Korean as 병풀, that grows across wet tropical and subtropical Asia. Its use in skin repair long predates cosmetics: the standardised extract has been a wound-healing pharmaceutical in Europe and Asia for decades, sold under the name Madecassol, which is where the whole ingredient family gets its naming convention.

The active fraction is a group of pentacyclic triterpenes. Their documented behaviour in skin is on the repair-and-quiet axis rather than the exfoliate-and-renew axis: they support fibroblast activity and collagen synthesis in wound models, and they damp down the inflammatory signalling that shows up on your face as redness and stinging. That combination, real repair evidence plus almost no irritation risk, is exactly what Korean formulators want as a base note under everything else, which is why the plant is in a quarter of our catalogue.

The plant also carries a great deal that is not triterpene: sugars, amino acids, flavonoids, madasiatic acid, and plain water-soluble plant matter. A whole extract brings all of it. An isolate brings one molecule. Both are defensible choices, and knowing which one you have bought is the difference between a good decision and a lucky one.

What does "cica" actually mean on a Korean label?

Nothing enforceable. "Cica" is a contraction the industry adopted from cicatrisation, the medical word for wound closure, and it has been used loosely enough that a product can carry it on the front while the ingredient list shows the plant present in trace quantities.

We can show you exactly that, from a brand we like, using the brand's own published numbers. Round Lab's Pine Calming Cica Toner declares its concentrations openly in the ingredient list, and they read: Pinus densiflora leaf extract at 400,196 ppm, houttuynia cordata at 10,699 ppm, glycoprotein at 81,800 ppm, and then asiaticoside, asiatic acid, madecassoside and madecassic acid each at 0.4090 ppm. That is a pine toner. It is a very good pine toner, roughly forty percent pine leaf extract by weight, and it has "Cica" on the bottle because the four centella triterpenes are technically present at four parts in ten million.

This is not a scandal and Round Lab is not hiding it, they printed the numbers themselves. It is simply the answer to why two products both labelled cica can feel like completely different things. Which brings us to the four words.

Madecassoside, asiaticoside, madecassic acid, asiatic acid: what is the difference?

The practical read: the glycosides are gentler and stay nearer the surface; the acids are more lipophilic and go further. A product carrying only madecassoside is a calming product. A product carrying all four is a repair product. A product carrying a whole centella extract and no named triterpenes is a hydration-and-comfort product that happens to contain the plant.

How do I tell whether a product contains real centella or a trace?

Two checks, both of which take ten seconds on an ingredient list.

Check one: where does centella sit? INCI lists run in descending order of concentration down to one percent. If Centella Asiatica Extract is in the first five ingredients, it is a genuine centella product. If it is below the preservative, it is a garnish.

Check two: are the triterpenes named separately? If a formulator has paid for isolated asiaticoside or madecassoside, they will list it, because it costs money. A list that says only "Centella Asiatica Extract" contains whatever the extract happened to contain.

Here is what those two checks reveal across our shelf, using only figures the brands published themselves.

Which centella product should I actually buy?

If your skin is red and reactive right now

You want madecassoside and as few other decisions as possible. Purito's Wonder Releaf Centella Toner Unscented is nineteen ingredients: water, centella extract second, then madecassoside, asiaticoside, asiatic acid and madecassic acid in sequence, panthenol, allantoin, purslane. No fragrance, no essential oil, no acid, nothing to negotiate with. Medicube's Super Cica Calming Sheet Mask is the twenty-minute version, though note it carries tea tree leaf oil, which some reactive skin does object to.

If you want the whole-plant approach, minimal formula

SKIN1004's Madagascar Centella Ampoule is the purest expression of this idea in the catalogue and one of the shortest ingredient lists we sell: water, glycerin, butylene glycol, centella asiatica extract, 1,2-hexanediol, cellulose gum, ethylhexylglycerin. Seven ingredients. No isolated triterpenes, no niacinamide, no peptides, no fragrance, nothing to react to. If your barrier is in trouble and you want to reintroduce one thing at a time, this is the product to reintroduce. It comes in 30 ml, 55 ml and 100 ml.

If you want the full triterpene stack in every step

COSRX's Pure Fit Cica range is the most literal centella range we carry. The toner, the serum and the cream all open with the same three ingredients: centella asiatica extract, centella asiatica leaf extract, centella asiatica root extract, in that order, before anything else at all. Each then closes with the four isolated triterpenes and a pinus pinaster bark extract. The toner is twenty ingredients, the serum twenty-one. There is also a creamy foam cleanser on the same base if you want the step-one version.

If your concern is firmness or pigmentation rather than redness

Centellian24 is the brand that treats centella as a pharmaceutical rather than a soothing agent, which is unsurprising given the parent company also makes the Madecassol ointment. The Expert Madeca Mela Capture Ampoule Max puts centella extract first, then runs an unusually long botanical list before landing on tranexamic acid, madecassic acid, asiaticoside, asiatic acid, madecassoside, melatonin, three vitamin C derivatives and alpha-arbutin. The Expert Madeca Cream Active Renew is the same philosophy in a cream, with Sodium DNA sitting directly above the triterpene block.

If you want centella with an exfoliating action

Medicube's Zero Pore Madecassoside Pads Mild pair gluconolactone, the gentlest of the polyhydroxy acids, with madecassoside high enough in the list to be doing real work. Round Lab's Pine Calming Cica Pad runs the same idea with gluconolactone plus capryloyl salicylic acid and a genuinely centella-forward list, with the plant fifth and all four triterpenes named. That is the Round Lab cica product to buy if you want the centella rather than the pine.

If you want centella under a serum with peptides

Purito's Wonder Releaf Centella Serum Unscented is the most complete formula in this section: centella fifth, all four triterpenes in sequence, centella asiatica callus extracellular vesicles, then four palmitoyl peptides and a ceramide NP. VT's Pro Cica Reedle Shot 100 takes the opposite route and adds silica microneedles to the same triterpene set, which is a texture experience as much as a formula.

Is mugwort the same thing as cica?

No, and Korean brands often sell them side by side because they are used for the same problem from different angles. Mugwort is Artemisia, a different genus entirely, valued for its own soothing flavonoids. Round Lab's Mugwort Calming Toner is a useful example of the two being combined honestly: it declares Artemisia vulgaris extract at 10,000 ppm, then adds madecassoside as a named isolate, in a twenty-ingredient list with dipotassium glycyrrhizate for extra calm. The matching gel-cream carries mugwort, centella leaf extract, madecassoside and asiaticoside together.

Worth knowing if you are sensitive: Artemisia is in the Asteraceae family, so if ragweed, chamomile or chrysanthemum have caused you trouble, mugwort is a reasonable thing to patch test. Centella is in the Apiaceae family and carries no such association.

Does centella actually work, or is it a soothing story?

It works, within its lane, and the lane is narrower than the marketing suggests.

The evidence base for the titrated extract in wound repair is genuinely decades deep, which is why it exists as a pharmaceutical and not only as a cosmetic. The evidence for a cosmetic centella product on intact skin is more modest but consistent: less visible redness, less reported stinging, better tolerance of actives introduced alongside it. That is a real and useful effect, and it is the reason we recommend a centella step to almost anyone starting a retinoid or an acid.

What centella will not do: it will not exfoliate, it will not lighten established pigmentation on its own, it will not clear comedones, and it will not replace a moisturiser. A centella extract is water-soluble; it holds and calms, it does not seal. Every well-built centella routine ends in a lipid, which is why SKIN1004's Soothing Cream puts a four-ceramide set plus phytosphingosine and cholesterol behind its 72 percent extract, and why Purito's Wonder Releaf Cream Unscented leads with macadamia oil and squalane before it gets to the plant.

Start here

If you are choosing one centella product and never want to think about this again, buy on your actual problem, not on the word cica. Red and reactive: the Purito unscented toner. Barrier in trouble and reintroducing one thing at a time: the SKIN1004 seven-ingredient ampoule. Want the plant in every step: the COSRX Pure Fit Cica line. Want it to also do something about tone: the Centellian24 Mela Capture ampoule.

The full centella range across our shelves lives on the serums and ampoules, toners and moisturizers shelves, and brand by brand at SKIN1004, COSRX, Purito Seoul, Centellian24, Round Lab, Medicube and VT Cosmetics.

Every ingredient list quoted above is the Korean-market formula, taken from the box we ship. If you want to know why that distinction matters, read what we mean by an original Korean formula. If you want to see centella slotted into a full routine rather than chosen in isolation, the barrier-tolerant routine article puts it in order, and the PDRN explainer covers the other ingredient Korean brands pair it with most often.