Decoded Korea

Korea's chemical substance database tracks over 47,000 substances. Each one can carry up to 9 regulatory flags — toxic, restricted, prohibited, priority management, accident preparedness, CMR (carcinogenic/mutagenic/reprotoxic), registration required, persistent organic pollutant, and Rotterdam Convention substance. We queried the entire database and ranked every substance by the number of simultaneous classifications it carries. The result: out of 47,000+ substances, only three carry 5 flags. No substance carries more than 5. The three most classified substances 1. Formaldehyde — CAS 50-00-0 Flag Details Toxic Acute toxicity 1%, chronic toxicity 0.1% Restricted Banned in furniture veneer, textiles, children's products (age 3 and under), wallpaper paste, leather softeners at 1%+ Priority management Flagged as CMR Accident preparedness Emergency plans required for facilities handling 1%+ mixtures Registration required Must be registered before comm...

COSRX says 96%. Anua says 77%. Beauty of Joseon says 30%. These numbers are printed right on the front of the packaging, and most people assume they all mean the same thing: the concentration of the star ingredient. They do not. The numbers are real, but what they measure varies from product to product — and in some cases, the same product shows a completely different ingredient list depending on which country you buy it in. We looked at how percentage claims work on K-Beauty labels, using products we already analyzed in our ingredient list breakdown . Three types of percentage claims Not every percentage on a K-Beauty label measures the same thing. There are at least three different ways brands use numbers. Type 1: Percentage of the total formula. COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence claims 96% (technically 96.3%). The ingredient list confirms this: Snail Secretion Filtrate is the first ingredient, and the remaining 11 ingredients — Betaine, Butylene Glycol, Phenoxyethan...

Most people do not think about chemical regulations until something goes wrong. A product recall, a news headline about contaminated toys, a warning label on a can of paint. But chemical regulations are not just about factory accidents and industrial waste. Some of the most heavily regulated substances in Korea are found in products that people encounter every day — furniture, paint, batteries, jewelry, and cleaning products. Korea manages chemical substances through K-REACH (Act on Registration, Evaluation, etc. of Chemical Substances), one of the most detailed chemical regulation frameworks in Asia. Unlike systems that classify a substance as simply "banned" or "allowed," K-REACH assigns substances to multiple regulatory categories simultaneously. A single chemical can be classified as toxic, restricted, subject to accident preparedness requirements, and flagged as a CMR substance. We looked up five chemicals that are present in everyday products and checked th...

If you follow K-Beauty at all, you have probably noticed a shift. A few years ago, the conversation was all about snail mucin and sheet masks. In 2024 and 2025, the ingredients getting attention are different. They sound more medical, more clinical, more like something you would hear in a dermatologist's office. That is not a coincidence. The biggest trend in Korean skincare over the past two years has been what the industry calls the "medicosmetic pivot" — ingredients that were originally developed for medical or pharmaceutical use, now showing up in over-the-counter skincare products on the shelves of Olive Young. We looked at the five ingredients that defined K-Beauty in 2024–2025 and checked their regulatory status across 10 countries. 1. PDRN — the "salmon DNA" ingredient PDRN stands for Polydeoxyribonucleotide. On product ingredient lists, PDRN products are typically listed under the INCI name Sodium DNA . If you have been on skincare TikTok in the p...

Every K-Beauty product has a list of ingredients printed on the back. Most people skip it. The names are long, confusing, and look like they belong in a chemistry exam. But that list tells you almost everything about what the product actually does. You do not need a science degree to read it. You need three rules and about five minutes. We picked five of the most popular K-Beauty products — all bestsellers at Olive Young, Korea's largest beauty store — and broke down their ingredient lists. By the end, you will know how to read any skincare label. Three rules for reading any ingredient list Rule 1: Order = amount. Ingredients are listed from highest to lowest concentration. The first ingredient is what the product contains the most of. The last ingredient is what it contains the least of. If "Water" is first, the product is mostly water. If "Snail Secretion Filtrate" is first, the product is mostly snail mucin. Rule 2: The 1% line. Somewhere around the m...

A sunscreen formulated for sale in Seoul cannot always be sold as-is in New York, Paris, or São Paulo. Each country maintains its own list of permitted UV filters, and the lists rarely match. A filter that is legal at 10% in one market may be banned in the next, or capped at 5%, or allowed only in specific product types. We mapped UV filter approvals across 10 markets — the EU, Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, ASEAN, the US, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina — using a structured database of 21,796 cosmetic ingredients with 30,960 regulatory records. Below is what the data shows. What every country agrees on Two UV filters are approved in all 10 markets: Zinc Oxide — mineral filter, broad spectrum (UVA + UVB) Titanium Dioxide — mineral filter, UVB and partial UVA These are the only filters with universal approval. Any formulation designed to sell identically across all 10 markets without reformulation must rely on these two ingredients. This is why most global brands lead with minera...