Decoded Korea

One of the skin experts Grazia interviewed for its 2026 K-beauty trend piece called 2025 the year of PDRN and expects 2026 to belong to EGF, epidermal growth factor, which is getting attention in Korea as a skin-repair ingredient. On an ingredient list, EGF goes by its INCI name: rh-Oligopeptide-1, sh-Oligopeptide-1, or a longer name built on one of those. In the EU ingredient database, the two letters in front of the name lead to different records. China does not allow the substance under any of these names, through a rule that its ban list does not show. rh, sh, and no prefix rh-Oligopeptide-1 and sh-Oligopeptide-1 both describe recombinant human EGF, a protein of 53 amino acids made by microorganisms that carry the human EGF gene. The EU ingredient database, CosIng, separates them by where that gene came from. For rh-Oligopeptide-1, the starting gene was isolated directly from a human cell. For sh-Oligopeptide-1, the starting gene was synthesized to be identical to the human o...