Decoded Korea

Late summer is when skincare routines get heavier. The lightweight gel that worked in August gets swapped for a cream, and the ingredient list on the back of the new jar is longer and less familiar than the old one. Ceramides, squalane, petrolatum, dimethicone, urea, a few silicones with numbers in their names. Several of those names carry a bad reputation online. Petrolatum is a petroleum derivative. Silicones are said to suffocate skin. Mineral oil turns up on avoid-lists that circulate every year. None of those claims come from regulators, but they shape what people buy. So we checked what regulators actually say. We queried our database of 21,796 cosmetic ingredients and 31,191 regulatory entries across 10 markets, and pulled every restriction attached to the ingredients that make up a typical autumn moisturizer. Of the 26 we checked, 20 have no regulatory entry in any of the 10 markets. The six that do are mostly capped at levels above what formulators use anyway. The 20 wit...