12 best Korean skincare brands, tried and tested by a beauty writer
Consider this guide your one-stop shop when it comes to giving your skin a boost
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Your support makes all the difference.Korean skincare brands are having a real moment, and it’s no surprise, with many promising soothed, smoothed and glowing-from-within skin. From Dr Jart+ to Innisfree, celebrities and influencers alike are flocking to get hold of K-beauty brand products.
One quick search for “glass skin” – the Korean phenomenon that leaves skin looking luminous – on TikTok summons almost 350k videos, with big accounts such as Natalie O’Neill and Mikayla Nogueira in the mix, too.
Broadly speaking, Korean skincare products take a more gentle approach, aiming to maintain skin health, even the complexion and hydrate and soothe, all the while removing impurities, without irritation.
Knowing where to start with Korean skincare can be tough, especially owing to the face that some brands use Korean Hangul (the name for its lettering system) on their labels. However, fear not, as we’ve been working tirelessly to test both the biggest names and under-the-radar brands on the K-beauty grapevine right now. Keep reading to see what we discovered.
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How we tested
Over the course of eight weeks, we reviewed a range of products from a large selection of K-beauty brands to get a feel for their quality and efficacy. We aimed to test bestselling products and companies across a variety of price points, paying attention to the feel of the products, their packaging, ingredients and performance over the trial period. We looked at everything from eye creams to sheet masks, dousing our skin in various Korean formulas before drawing a conclusion as to which we felt were the best brands to shop in 2024.
The best Korean skincare brands for 2024 are:
Laneige
Best: For dull skin
Founded back in 1994 in South Korea, Laneige has somewhat of a cult skincare status, with woman-of-the-moment Sydney Sweeney now acting as the face of the brand. Its lip sleeping mask (£21, Lookfantastic.com) with hyaluronic acid and shea butter is an overnight sensation, and leaves your lips looking softer and fuller. Meanwhile, the water bank cream (£32.50, Lookfantastic.com) comes in sleek packaging, with three variations to suit different skin types. Not to mention it uses probiotic and beta-glucan ceramides to help soothe and revitalise damaged skin barriers. All in all, the brand’s slogan, “feel the glow”, couldn’t be more apt, as its formulas really do enhance your complexion’s natural radiance.
COSRX
Best: For rough/bumpy skin
COSRX’s slogan is “expecting tomorrow” and, with a whole host of peptide and skin-renewing formulas on offer, the brand certainly sets its sights on getting ahead of the signs of ageing. Founded by Jun Sang Hun in 2013, its bestsellers – including the snail mucin power essence (£27.99, Lookfantastic.com) – focus on exfoliating and eliminating dull skin, using glycolic acid that’s present in the snail mucin (a protein secreted by the gastropods). Meanwhile, different AHAs and BHAs, such as salicylic acid, are used in the brand’s blackhead power liquid (£29.99, Lookfantastic.com).
Glow Recipe
Best: For oily skin
A brand that was technically launched in the US, but has two South Korean-born founders – Sarah Lee and Christine Chang – Glow Recipe considers itself a K-beauty brand. Lots of Glow Recipe’s formulas are targeted towards shine-prone complexions. Indeed, the brand’s bestselling watermelon dew drops (£32, Cultbeauty.co.uk) are anchored around oil-balancing niacinamide. With product names including the pore tight toner (£31, Cultbeauty.co.uk) and pore-smooth blur drops (£29, Cultbeauty.co.uk), it’s clear oily skin and Glow Recipe go hand-in-hand. We found the dew drops to sit on the skin comfortably, with their lightweight, yet stretchy feel (a little goes a long way), working to keep excess sebum to a minimum.
Erborian
Best: For colour correction
Erborian has been on our radar since 2013, when it popped up in one of our beauty subscription boxes, but the brand was originally founded in Seoul in 2007. Erborian is perhaps best known for its top-selling CC cream (£20.50, Lookfantastic.com), which promises to adapt to your skintone and has a lightweight, moisturising formula. That said, it was actually the BB cream (£41, Lookfantastic.com) that put the brand on the map, as it was one of the first to land in Europe. From both of these your-skin-but-better creams to the red pepper super serum (£34.50, Lookfantastic.com), the majority of Erborian’s formulas target the likes of dark spots, dull under-eye areas and redness, using skin-brightening ingredients and pigment to help even out your complexion.
Dr.Jart+
Best: For irritated skin
Dr.Jart+ and its renowned cryo rubber face masks (£14, Boots.com) launched in Selfridges in the UK in 2017. The availability of the brand here was highly anticipated, especially with celebrities such as Kim and Khloe Kardashian, and Parks and Recreation’s Rashida Jones having waxed lyrical about the products years before we could get our hands on them. Dr.Jart+ was founded way back in 2005 by Leeo (Chin Wook) Lee and, much like Erborian, this brand also lays claim to the creation of BB cream – a much-disputed topic that we won’t delve into. As for the products we tried, both the cicapair soothing repair cream (£40, Boots.com) and the ceramidin skin barrier cream (£38, Boots.com) worked to calm after-effects of using AHAs and BHAs too frequently. The ceramidin cream is also an excellent on-the-spot treatment for dry patches and irritation flare ups. Overall, most Dr.Jart+ products will help you reset and calm your skin.
Naturium
Best: For exfoliating
While Naturium itself doesn’t identify as a Korean beauty brand, it’s half-Korean founder – Susan Yara – told IndyBest: “There’s no doubt we found inspiration in Korean skincare when we created the brand. We especially love the beautiful textures you get from K-beauty, at accessible prices, but our true inspiration comes from our community and their skincare needs.” She added: “Our focus is to deliver high-quality, luxurious formulas that are clinically effective and address a number of skin issues, without a high price tag.” Some such skin issues the brand target include rough skin and keratosis pilaris, with plenty of Naturium’s body range, such as the salicylic acid wash (£18, SpaceNK.com), working to smoothe and open up congested pores. Likewise, exfoliation features throughout many of the company’s face products, with, for instance, the vitamin C complex (£22, SpaceNK.com) using extract of pineapple for this purpose, as well as to reduce irritation.
Hero.
Best: For acne
Much like Naturium, Hero. is techically a US brand but its founder – Ju Rhyu – is Korean and it was the Koreans’ love of pimple patches (in Seoul, specifically) that led her to take the craze to America. Hero. is actually more than just a blemish patch brand though, with products ranging from blackhead solutions to colour-correcting creams. While we wait for these gems to make their way across the Atlantic, the Hero. patches come in three variations: original (£8.79, Amazon.co.uk), invisible+ (£14.99, Amazon.co.uk) and surface (£14.55, Amazon.co.uk). For us, the original patches are almost as discrete as the invisibles, and we saw some hefty breakouts turn miniscule overnight with their help. The patches work by using fluid-absorbing hypercolloid to draw out the gunk from your pimples with the surface edition doing so over pimple clusters. For chronic acne sufferers, Hero. will be an anti-picking and scarring saviour.
Thank You Farmer
Best: For nourishing skin
Thank You Farmer first came onto our radar when skincare guru Caroline Hirons mentioned the brand’s SPF (£22, Cultbeauty.co.uk) in an old ‘skincare empties’ blog in 2017. The brand was relatively young at that point, having only launched in 2014 and, 10 years on, it still centres its products around a combination of nurturing Korean herbal ingredients and modern innovations, such as extracting the nutrients from rice (using low-temperature ultrasonic technology) to create the rice pure milky hydrating toner (£24, Cultbeauty.co.uk). The toner itself is soothing and gentle, sweeping away any leftover impurities post-cleanse and leaving the skin perfectly prepped for your serums, oils, moisturisers and so on.
Then I Met You
Best: For self-care
Another brand that’s been given the thumbs up by Caroline Hirons, Then I Met You only launched in the UK in 2021 and, as soon as it did, we – and every other skincare buff – ran to get our hands on the brand’s living cleansing balm (£38, SpaceNK.com). The balm was tested by our reviewer, who described it as “luxurious while being incredibly fast-working and, after a hot, sticky day on the Tube, it was the perfect antidote to tired skin”. They added that it felt like “a mini pamper and face massage in one”.
As for the brand’s history, founder Charlotte Cho is a Californian with South Korean parents. Cho found jeong (which translates roughly to affection or fondness) through South Korean culture after spending five years there and, in 2018, Then I Met You was born. Since then, the brand has been putting texture at the forefront of its formulas, as well as championing active ingredients such as antioxidant panax gingseng and healing fermented rice wine. Ultimately, this makes for a mindful and sensual skincare experience to start and end each day.
Beauty of Joseon
Best: For sensitive skin
Beauty of Joseon is a brand that, in the past year or so, has been popular with YouTube’s @nikkitutorials plus almost 100k TikTok users, according to the platform’s #beautyofjoseon tag. The brand was founded in the mid-2010s by Sumin Lee and is headed up in Seoul. The brand draws inspiration from the 14th-20th century Joseon dynasty and the medicinal ingredients that were used during that period, be it for food or healing. Today, the brand draws on the excellence of these ingredients (think calming rice extract and skin barrier-boosting propolis/bee resin) on the skin to create myriad SPFs, moisturisers and serums that put your face health at the forefront. For us, the relief sun SPF 50+ (£13.90, BeautyBay.com) was a pleasure to use, with a creamy yet lightweight formula that’s oily-skin-friendly. We also really liked the red bean water gel (£16.75, BeautyBay.com), which provides an instant hydration boost without so much as a whisper of fragrance – perfect for sensitive skin types. Another perk? This is easily one of the most affordable K-beauty brands.
Innisfree
Best: Eco-friendly skincare
A 2000s brand from South Korea, Innisfree, somewhat surprisingly, takes its name from Irish poet William Yeats’s The Lake Isle of Innisfree. The brand claims to be its country’s first natural brand, and derives its ingredients from the ecological haven of Jeju island. With Fairtrade, community development and eco-friendly practices at the heart of the company, Innisfree uses Jeju’s green tea – grown organically for seven years on the island – to infuse the skin with antioxidants and moisture. Now, years since the brand’s inauguration, green tea accounts for only 15 per cent of Innisfree’s formulas, with the likes of vitamin-rich seaweed and brightening soybean among its rich ingredient roster. Even with its remote Jeju roots, Innisfree is loved by celebrities such as Demi Lovato and, as for us here at IndyBest, we found the cherry blossom jam cleanser (£17, Cultbeauty.co.uk) to be a gentle and comforting start to our day, with oil-balancing niacinamide included in the formula.
Peach & Lily
Best: For glass skin
Peach & Lily is one of the K-beauty brands you’re less likely to have happened upon, but we’re here to tell you it should command your attention. It was founded by New York’s Alicia Yoon in 2012 after she, being South Korean, attended Korean skin school in a bid to transform her own itchy, painful skin. Yoon wanted to be able to use actives, even as someone with sensitive skin so she created the glass skin serum (£72, Barefacebeauty.shop). The product combines niacinamide and peptides with anti-inflammatory East Asian mountain yam and skin barrier-boosting madecassoside. Trying the serum on our skin, the combination of invigorating and soothing ingredients worked to leave the skin feeling awake and looking plump and youthful, while also combatting redness.
Want more recommendations? Check out our guide to the best lip balms