“Rice Bran Water” and “Niacinamide,” a whitening ingredient, are on the front of Dr. Melaxin’s functional brand Ampul products, which have recently emerged through TikTok. It is the opposite of existing cosmetics, which emphasized the brand name and the name of manufacturing and distributing company. On Naver Datalab’s cosmetics and beauty list, which shows popular search terms recently, products with specific ingredients such as “Madeka Cream,” “Melanone Cream,” and “Johoba Oil” were on the top of the list.
While sustainability has become a hot topic across consumer goods, the trend of “clean beauty” in K-beauty is intense. This is because more and more consumers are strict about whether the entire production process is eco-friendly.
According to the cosmetics industry, the main keywords of the clean beauty trend are safety, hypoallergenic, and sustainability. While early clean beauty is free from harmful ingredients such as “paraben-free” and “no surfactant added,” the meaning is expanding to hypoallergenic products with less side effects even when used by sensitive skin such as atopic dermatitis, and sustainable products using vegetable ingredients and easy-to-decompose containers.
Clean beauty is directly related to the purchase of ‘skincare’. According to a report released in September by cosmetics review platform Hwahae, one of the strongest trends in clean beauty is “vegan” that does not use animal ingredients. Within the Hwahae application, the search volume for vegan keywords surged 2,600% compared to September 2023.
PDRN is a leading player in this vegan craze, and competition for ingredient development is fierce among cosmetics manufacturers and development (ODM) companies. Kolmar Korea has launched more than 60 vegan PDRN products that replace salmon PDRN using innovative technology that extracts high-functional ingredients that have the same efficacy as existing animal-derived ingredients directly from plants. Since developing the first plant-derived PDRN extraction technology in Korea in 2023, it has become possible to develop products using vegan materials that customers want, such as Jangmi or Byeongpul.
A technology that extracts animal-derived glycosaminoglycan, a key component of snail cream, from plants is also undergoing patent application. Mycelium, which acts as a mushroom root, also produces an ingredient that replaces hyaluronic acid, a moisturizing ingredient used in serums and mask packs.
Cosmax also recently developed a vegan PDRN with a sequence that is more than 99.9% identical to that of salmon PDRN. It is characterized by stably securing high-purity DNA in a short period of time because it only utilizes the pathway to biosynthesize intracellular substances, not the entire cell.
Additionally, Cosmax has incorporated bio-dessert oil, which is bio-synthesized by microorganisms living in extreme environments, into its British skincare brand. It is a functional ingredient that can be used in two ways to improve skin conditions and prevent thermal damage to hair. Cica peptides have also been developed, which are manufactured using microbial biosynthesis technology from wound-regenerating peptides derived from the human body.
“The need for clean and sustainable beauty continues to grow in the global cosmetics market,” a Cosmax official said. “There will be a trend to minimize environmental impact and develop safe ingredients by continuously developing biosynthetic and vegan materials.”
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
