Banila Co

Banila Co is a Korean brand made by F&Co, a company registered in Seoul's Gangnam district. Its official site splits the range into cleansing, skincare and makeup. Cleansing is where it started, with the Clean It Zero balms, alongside Dear Hydration for moisture and Miss Flower & Mr Honey for propolis.

Three of its own claims are checkable. The ingredient list Banila publishes for Clean It Zero Original opens with two esters, ethylhexyl palmitate and cetyl ethylhexanoate, then puts PEG-20 glyceryl triisostearate and PEG-10 isostearate straight after, with onsen-sui — hot spring water — sixth. It calls that combination Zero Balance Technology, which it says cleanses deeply without disturbing the skin's moisture balance. And its own directions tell you to massage the balm onto dry skin, then add water to emulsify and massage again.

All three are worth unpacking: what the PEGs do, what the hot spring water does, and why that second massage matters.

Start with the PEGs. Ethylhexyl palmitate and cetyl ethylhexanoate are the oils that dissolve makeup — like dissolves like, which is why sunscreen comes off with oil and not with foam. PEG-20 glyceryl triisostearate and PEG-10 isostearate are the emulsifiers, and they are the reason a balm can be rinsed at all. That they sit so high is the honest signal: a balm is mostly solvent plus emulsifier, so a good one is judged on which oils it picks and how cleanly it rinses — which is how both balms below were picked.

Which is why emulsifying decides whether you get on with one. Adding water and massaging again turns the melted oil milky, and that emulsion rinses. Skip it and a film stays behind, which oily and breakout-prone skin tolerates badly — most complaints about balms are technique rather than formula. The charcoal balm below is the plainest we send, at fourteen ingredients.

Hot spring water and Zero Balance Technology are the softer half. Mineral water sixth in a rinse-off product gets seconds of contact time, and what a cleanser mostly owes you is not stripping. The rice gel below handles the second cleanse, at a stated pH of 5.5.

We don't carry Banila Co itself. For each of these jobs, though, we send an alternative we rate highly.

For Banila Co's Clean It Zero balms: scoop it out with the included spatula, massage it in circles onto dry skin until it breaks down the makeup, add water to emulsify the oil and massage it again, then rinse it all off well with lukewarm water. For the Dear Hydration Skin Softening Toner: after cleansing, use a cotton pad to apply a few drops to face and neck, then follow with serum and moisturizer. The picks above run in routine order: balm, second cleanse, primer, cushion.