Counted from our own catalog.··
Original Korean formulas, and what we actually carry
Every product listed here is the formulation a brand makes for the Korean market, recorded against the EAN barcode printed on its box. That is the sourcing decision behind the whole catalog, and it is the thing this page is about.
What follows is the practical version of it: how wide the shelf is, which of it a US retailer does not stock, how to read a Korean ingredient list, and how to check a unit in your own hands without taking our word for anything.
The release
The Korean-market release, every time
Every formula we list is the Korean-market release. Sun care is where we have found brands shipping a different formula abroad, and it is where the difference matters most.
Counted
The shelf, counted rather than described
The figures on this page are counted from the catalog at the moment you load it. Nothing here is a rounded marketing number, and if the catalog moves, the numbers move with it.
Where a brand releases the same product in more than one size, each size is its own listing with its own barcode, because that is how the brand sells it. A 100 ml toner and a 200 ml toner are two units, not one unit described twice.
- Products listed
- 6,997
- Korean brands
- 305
- Categories
- 20
- Moisturizer1,181
- Serum & Ampoule1,103
- Mask829
- Cleanser802
- Toner728
- Hair469
- Sun Care335
- Makeup334
Access
How much of a brand you can buy in one place
Most sellers carry a slice of a brand. We track what each seller lists, product by product, keyed to the same barcodes, so the comparison below counts units rather than impressions.
Read the scope carefully, because it is the honest part. This counts the Korean brands we carry. Several sellers in the table stock hundreds of brands we do not touch, and their catalogs as a whole are far larger than ours. What the table says is narrower and more useful: within those brands, this is how deep each shelf goes.
| Seller | Products listed |
|---|---|
| Korean Pharmacy | |
| YesStyle | |
| StyleKorean | |
| Moida | |
| Jolse | |
| Stylevana | |
| Olive Young US | |
| Senti Senti | |
| Olive Kollection | |
| Skin Cupid US | |
| Amazon | |
| Yami | |
| PlayLab Beauty |
6,658 of the 6,997 products we list are not on the Olive Young US shelf, which carries 339 of them.
Labelling
The number on the front of the box, and where to find it again
Korean ingredient lists often carry a declared amount beside the ingredient itself, written as a percentage or in parts per million. When a product name puts a figure on the front of the box, the ingredient list usually carries that figure too, which turns a marketing number into something you can check against the label.
The examples below are read straight off the ingredient lists we hold for those units. Nothing is converted, rounded, or restated: the figure printed here is the figure printed on the list.
APLB
APLB AHA BHA PHA Centella Ampoule Serum 40ml
Centella Asiatica Extract (32.3%)Gluconolactone (100ppm)Citric Acid (100ppm)
First on the list
- Water
- Centella Asiatica Extract (32.3%)
- Butylene Glycol
- Propanediol
- Glycerin
COSRX
COSRX The Alpha-Arbutin 2 Discoloration Care Serum (Single)
Alpha-Arbutin(2%)
First on the list
- Aqua/Water
- Propanediol
- Glycerin
- Niacinamide
- Tranexamic Acid
Abib
Abib Dark Spot Collagen Wrapping Mask Glutathione Film 100ml
Glutathione (1,000 ppm)Hydrolyzed Collagen (500 ppm)
First on the list
- Water
- Octyldodecanol
- Polyvinyl Alcohol
- Methylpropanediol
- Butylene Glycol
Medicube
medicube EGF NAD Firming Serum 30ml
sh-Oligopeptide-1 (2.5ppm)Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (1ppm)
First on the list
- Purified Water
- Butylene Glycol
- Dipropylene Glycol
- Niacinamide
- Xylitol
Method
How to read an ingredient list, and what it will not tell you
Ingredients are listed in descending order of amount down to one percent, and in any order below that. So position tells you a great deal near the top of a list and very little near the bottom. Water leading a list is ordinary and says nothing about quality.
An ingredient list tells you what is in a product. It does not tell you how the formula was built, how the actives are stabilised, or how the product will feel on your skin, and no honest reading of a list can supply those. Where a brand declares an amount, you learn one more true thing. Where it does not, the list gives you presence and rank and stops there.
This is also why we key every listing to a barcode rather than to a product name. Names get reused across releases and across markets. A barcode identifies one unit as the brand released it.
Proof
Checking a unit without taking our word for it
Two things are printed on the box that we did not write and cannot change. The barcode identifies the unit the brand released. The production code, stamped or inked separately from the artwork, identifies the batch it came from and when it was made.
Verification routes are set by each brand, not by us, and they genuinely differ. Some brands run their own lookup, one uses a holographic seal that needs the brand's app, and at least one has stopped verifying units altogether, leaving authorized retailer status as the answer instead. Each product page carries the route for the brand it sells.
At checkout
Duties and returns
Duties are prepaid at checkout, so nothing is owed at delivery. That is a pricing decision the business has made, not a claim about how a checkout calculates a duty line, and it holds from day one.
Returns run 30 days from delivery, by mail. Both of these are decisions the business has made and can honour, which is why they are stated here while nothing on this page describes a warehouse or a delivery time.
Orders of $100 or more ship free inside the United States.