Beauty of Joseon

Beauty of Joseon is a Korean skincare brand run by GOODAI GLOBAL INC. from Gangnam, Seoul. Its own site organizes the range around seven ingredient lines — ginseng, rice bran, green tea, red bean, propolis, green plum and centella asiatica — with the rest of the catalogue sorted by category and concern. The lines are named for what they are built on.

It publishes specific numbers for two of its core formulas. Relief Sun: Rice + Probiotics is labelled SPF50+ PA++++ and built on 30% rice extract with fermented grain extracts, and the brand names its four UV filters outright: ethylhexyl triazone, diethylamino hydroxybenzoyl hexyl benzoate, diethylhexyl butamido triazone, and methylene bis-benzotriazolyl tetramethylbutylphenol. The Glow Serum is 60% propolis extract with 2% niacinamide and 0.5% BHA.

Three of those are worth unpacking: what 30% rice extract contributes to a sunscreen, what that filter list actually buys, and what 2% niacinamide and 0.5% BHA mean sitting next to a 60% headline.

Start with the 30% rice extract. In a sunscreen, a botanical at that share is the base the formula rides in — pleasant texture, a little hydration. It isn't doing the protecting, and no amount of rice would change the SPF. Rice earns its place better in a leave-on step — the rice and snail mucin essence below.

The filter list is the part that matters. Those four are newer-generation organic filters, stable and strong on UVA — and none of them is currently approved for use in sunscreens sold in the US, so a bottle bought here cannot contain them. What counts instead is how well the approved set is built, and the sunscreen below is built well: homosalate, ethylhexyl salicylate, avobenzone, ensulizole and octocrylene.

60% propolis is the softest of the three numbers. Propolis is soothing and conditioning, so a large share describes the base rather than adding an active. Comfort is a fair thing to buy a moisturizer for, and the fermented soybean cream below is built for it: bean amino acids for conditioning, meadowfoam seed oil and panthenol behind them.

The 2% niacinamide is the number doing measurable work, at the low end of the range usually used for tone, and 0.5% BHA is a mild dose — closer to daily comfort than to exfoliation. If you want acids doing more, a rinse-off step is safer: the foaming cleanser below carries LHA and glycolic acid. The eye cream below prints both its actives at 0.1%.

We don't carry Beauty of Joseon itself. For each of these jobs, though, we send an alternative we rate highly — the five picks below.

For Beauty of Joseon's Relief Sun: Rice + Probiotics, as the last step of your morning routine, coat two full fingers with sunscreen, apply all over face and neck, and reapply every two to three hours to maintain protection. For the Glow Serum, dispense two to three drops into your palm, apply gently to face and neck focusing on drier areas, then tap lightly with your fingertips until it absorbs. The picks above run in routine order: cleanser, essence, eye cream, moisturizer, and sunscreen last in the morning.