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. It does not tell you which product is better, because the number and the vehicle move together. The 96 essence is 96 percent filtrate and has no added water at all, which is why it is thin, tacky and absorbs. The 92 cream is 92 percent filtrate plus an emulsion, which is why it occludes. The 74.3 dual essence gives up filtrate to make room for niacinamide and glutathione. The 72 eye cream gives up more to make room for five peptides. Buy for what the other eight percent is doing.

What does snail secretion filtrate actually do on skin?

It is a mixed humectant and film-former, and that combination is the whole reason it behaves the way it does.

Snail secretion filtrate is a naturally viscous, glycoprotein-rich fluid that carries its own hydrating fraction and its own polymer fraction. The hydrating fraction binds water at the surface, the way glycerin or sodium hyaluronate would. The polymer fraction dries down into a thin, slightly tacky film that slows water loss from the top of the stratum corneum. That is why snail feels different from a hyaluronic acid serum even at similar hydration: hyaluronic acid draws water and then leaves, and snail draws water and then stays put over it.

Practically, this makes it a good barrier-support layer for skin that is dehydrated, over-exfoliated, wind-burned or recovering from an active, and a good grip layer under an occlusive at night. It is not an exfoliant, it is not a retinoid, and it does not do anything to pigment. If a product's whole story is snail, its whole job is hydration and comfort. The tackiness is not a defect to be formulated away, it is the film doing its job, and it is also the single most common reason people bounce off the essence.

Fifteen units in our catalogue list snail secretion filtrate in their ingredient list: thirteen from COSRX and two from Beauty of Joseon. COSRX is the brand that built the category, so it is the one worth taking apart properly.

What is the difference between COSRX Snail 96, 92, 74.3 and 72?

The percentage is the filtrate content. The category is what the rest of the formula was built to do. Read this table down the "what the rest of the formula is for" column rather than down the percentage column.

Is Snail 96 better than Snail 92?

They are not competing. One is an essence, one is a moisturizer, and in a Korean routine they sit in different steps and are frequently used together.

What is genuinely remarkable about the 96 essence is not the 96. It is the twelve. The entire ingredient list is: snail secretion filtrate, betaine, butylene glycol, 1,2-hexanediol, sodium hyaluronate, panthenol, arginine, allantoin, ethyl hexanediol, sodium polyacrylate, carbomer, phenoxyethanol. There is no water in it. Water is the first ingredient in almost every skincare product on earth, and here the filtrate is doing that job. There is no oil, no emulsifier, no fragrance and no extract list. That is why it is a reasonable thing to hand to reactive skin, and it is why it feels the way it does: with nothing to cut the film, you get the film.

The 92 cream keeps the filtrate as the base and adds caprylic/capric triglyceride, cetearyl olivate and sorbitan olivate, cetearyl alcohol and dimethicone. That is a small, competent oil-in-water emulsion built on olive-derived emulsifiers. Four percent of the filtrate went away and an occlusive layer arrived. If your skin loses water overnight, that trade is worth making. If your skin is oily and you only want the hydration, it is not.

The rule of thumb: 96 if you want the film and will put your own moisturizer over it, 92 if you want the film and the moisturizer in one step. Both are on the essences and moisturizers shelves respectively.

Why are there two versions of Snail 92, in a jar and a tube?

Because the emulsion is ordered differently, and in an emulsion the order is the texture.

Both are 92 percent filtrate and both draw on the same palette. But in the jar, butylene glycol sits fourth and sodium hyaluronate sits well down the list; in the tube, sodium hyaluronate sits sixth, stearic acid moves up, and butylene glycol is not declared at all. COSRX describes the jar as a lightweight cream and the tube as a tacky-to-absorbing gel-cream, and the ingredient orders agree with that. The tube is the lighter, faster drydown; the jar is the richer one.

There is also a hygiene argument for the tube that has nothing to do with texture: a 92 percent filtrate product with a short preservative system is a product you would rather not put your fingers into daily. The tube comes in 200 g as well, which is the best value in the family if you use it on your body or your neck.

What does the 74.3 Dual Essence add for the filtrate it gives up?

Brightening machinery and lipids, which is a genuinely different product rather than a weaker one.

The Radiance Dual Essence puts niacinamide third in the list, which is high, and finishes with glutathione. In between it carries meadowfoam seed oil, sunflower seed oil, macadamia seed oil and argan kernel oil, plus inulin lauryl carbamate and sodium surfactin, which is what lets an oil phase and a water phase share a dual chamber and mix at the moment of dispensing. So you are getting the snail film plus a tone-evening active plus a light lipid layer, in one step.

That makes it the right pick if your complaint is dullness and unevenness rather than pure dehydration, and the wrong pick if you specifically wanted the minimal twelve-ingredient formula. It is 80 ml against the essence's 100 ml, so compare per millilitre rather than per bottle.

Is the Snail Peptide Eye Cream just the cream in a smaller jar?

No. It is the only product in the family with a real peptide complex, and the peptides are the reason to buy it.

The Advanced Snail Peptide Eye Cream is 72 percent filtrate and then carries copper tripeptide-1, acetyl hexapeptide-8, palmitoyl pentapeptide-4, palmitoyl tripeptide-1 and palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7, with niacinamide sixth and adenosine partway down. That is a signal-peptide stack aimed at fine lines and firmness, sitting on top of a hydration base, in a rich cream at 25 ml. It is also perfectly usable outside the eye area if you want that combination somewhere else, which is what many people actually do with it.

If your complaint is puffiness and morning tightness rather than lines, the hydrogel patch is the cheaper and more appropriate answer: filtrate third, niacinamide fourth, and a carrageenan and gum matrix built to sit wet against the skin for fifteen minutes. Both are on the eye care shelf.

Should I buy the Snail Mucin Gel Cleanser?

Buy it if you want a mild gel cleanser. Do not buy it for the filtrate, which gets about ninety seconds on your face before it goes down the drain.

In the Advanced Snail Mucin Gel Cleanser, snail secretion filtrate is tenth on the list, behind water, acrylates copolymer, butylene glycol, glycerin and three surfactants. It also contains fragrance, which none of the leave-on snail products above do. In a rinse-off product this is entirely normal and not a criticism of the formula: the surfactant system is a reasonable mild one built on disodium laureth sulfosuccinate, sodium cocoyl isethionate, coco-glucoside and lauryl betaine. It is just not where the snail is doing the work, because almost nothing in a cleanser gets to do work. If fragrance is a problem for you, Low pH Good Morning Gel Cleanser is the brand's other answer, and the cleansers shelf has 88 more.

Does snail mucin help with acne, scarring or wrinkles?

It helps with the skin around the problem more than with the problem.

For acne-prone skin, snail's value is that it hydrates without oil and without occlusion, which makes it one of the few comfortable ways to rehydrate skin that is being dried out by benzoyl peroxide, an acid or a retinoid. That is real and useful. It is not an acne treatment, it has no keratolytic or antimicrobial action, and it will not clear a breakout. For post-acne marks, the honest position is that the film supports recovery and the hydration makes marks look less angry, and that if pigment is your actual target you want a tone-evening active. In this family that is the 74.3 dual essence, and outside it there are better-aimed options like Anua's Niacinamide 10% + TXA 4% Serum.

For fine lines, the peptide eye cream is the only member of the family with a mechanism pointed at them. The others plump by hydration, which is a genuine same-day improvement in the appearance of fine lines and is not a structural change.

One more honest note: snail secretion filtrate is not a good match for everyone. A minority of people find it grabby under sunscreen or makeup, and it pills against silicone-heavy layers. If that is you, the answer is not a higher percentage.

How does COSRX snail compare to Beauty of Joseon's?

Differently positioned, and much lower in the list.

Beauty of Joseon's Revive Serum: Ginseng + Snail Mucin leads on panax ginseng root water and puts snail secretion filtrate further down, alongside niacinamide, trehalose, adenosine, centella and a mushroom extract trio. It is a lighter, more conventional serum that uses snail as one texturising and hydrating component among several, rather than as the entire formula. If you like the effect of snail but not the film, that is the direction to go.

So which one should I buy?

• Dehydrated, tight, over-exfoliated skin, and you already have a moisturizer: the 96 essence. Twelve ingredients, no fragrance, no oil.
• You want one step instead of two: the 92 tube if you want it lighter, the 92 jar if you want it richer.
• Dullness and uneven tone alongside dehydration: the 74.3 dual essence.
• Fine lines around the eyes: the peptide eye cream. Puffiness: the hydrogel patches.
• You want to try snail without committing to a 100 ml bottle: the essence also comes in 50 ml, and there is a ten-pack of sheet masks on the masks shelf.
• You like the idea but not the film: the Beauty of Joseon Revive Serum.

A last word on which unit you are buying. Snail is the K-beauty product most likely to be sold to Americans through channels nobody can account for, and the percentage on the front of the box is the easiest thing in the world to print. The things that are not easy to print are the manufacturer's barcode and the production code stamped on the unit, which is why reading the batch code is worth thirty seconds on this product in particular. Snail is not a category where the Korean and American formulas differ, and we say so plainly in Two bottles, one name; the risk here is provenance, not reformulation.

Every unit above is the Korean-market formula. We key every listing to a barcode rather than a name, because names get recycled across markets. COSRX is also one of the four brands in our catalogue that runs its own authenticity portal, which matters more for this product than for almost anything else we sell: see How to prove the bottle in your hand came from Seoul. The full COSRX shelf runs to 178 units, the deepest brand in our full catalogue, and if you want to build the rest of the routine around whichever snail product you pick, the serums and ampoules and toners shelves are where the next two steps live. Shipping, duties and returns are on the FAQ.