What does heartleaf actually do, and which number on the bottle is real?

Heartleaf is one of the few Korean hero ingredients where the naming is honest. We found 22 products with heartleaf in the name; 19 of them have an ingredient list on record, and all 19 actually carry it. After writing about PDRN, peptides and collagen, that is a pleasant thing to be able to report.

The problem is somewhere else, and it is in two parts.

The biggest printed number belongs to the weakest form. One product prints 77 percent, and that 77 percent is heartleaf water, a hydrosol standing in where plain water would go. Another prints 10 percent and that one is an extract. Those are not two rungs on the same ladder.

And underneath all of it: not one study we have applies plain heartleaf extract topically to human skin. The supporting work is real and it is all in cell culture.

What the ingredient list calls it

On a Korean label heartleaf is almost never written 어성초, the name on the front. In the statutory list it is 약모밀, and it arrives in three shapes that are worth separating.

Heartleaf flower, leaf and stem water, a hydrosol. It is a distillate, essentially water carrying a trace, and a large figure beside it is mostly a statement about the water phase.

Heartleaf extract, a concentrated preparation. This is the entry where a number means what you think it means, and it is nearly always far smaller.

Brand coined preparations, which are names for arrangements of ordinary entries rather than distinct materials. One product on this page prints a second heartleaf entry near the end of its list whose unit is truncated on the label itself, so we are not quoting the figure.

The rule is the same one that governs rice toners, which we went through in what a rice toner actually does. Read the extract, not the water.

What the research supports

Worth being precise, because the gap between what is published and what pages claim is unusually wide here.

What holds, all in cell culture. The extract activated a pair of antioxidant response pathways, induced an antioxidative enzyme gene, inhibited reactive oxygen species and upregulated filaggrin gene expression in human keratinocytes. Reduction of inflammatory cytokine secretion reproduces across three separate cell systems with three different heartleaf preparations: fermented and unfermented broth in keratinocytes, an enriched fraction in dermal fibroblasts, and the essential oil in macrophages. The essential oil is also stable in oil in water emulsions for eight weeks and shows no cytotoxicity in two cell lines up to 500 micrograms per millilitre.

That is a coherent body of work and it is genuinely promising.

What does not hold. Heartleaf extract calms, soothes or repairs skin: no source applies the extract topically to human skin. The one study that examined formulation for cosmetic use states it was confined to in vitro assays with no in vivo validation and no permeation data.

Heartleaf strengthens the barrier: the filaggrin and aquaporin changes are gene and protein measurements in keratinocyte monolayers, not barrier function on a face.

Heartleaf brightens or fades pigmentation: no source reports a pigmentation outcome for the extract, and none reports any pigmentation measurement on human skin.

Heartleaf is antibacterial so it disinfects skin: the antimicrobial panel is broth based in vitro testing of the essential oil, which is not the extract on your label.

And the one that matters most for the rest of this article: a percentage of heartleaf extract delivers a stated effect. No source establishes a dose response on skin or a minimum effective topical concentration. So the ladder below is a ladder of disclosure, not a ladder of effect. You cannot rank these products by their numbers, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

There is also no safety assessment for heartleaf extract located in this record, which is a gap rather than a finding in either direction.

Anua Heartleaf 77 Hyaluronic Acid Moisture Soothing Lotion

The biggest number in the category, attached to the form that carries the least.

Heartleaf flower, leaf and stem water is position 1, printed at 77 percent. It sits where water would normally sit, and the ingredient list carries purified water separately further down.

That is a real formulation choice and worth respecting: replacing most of the water phase with a botanical distillate costs more than using water. It is also not 77 percent of a concentrated botanical. A hydrosol is the most dilute form heartleaf comes in.

The brand prints a second heartleaf entry near the end of the list. Its unit is truncated on the label itself, so there is no figure there we are willing to quote.

There is no fragrance entry and no pregnancy caution ingredient. As a light lotion with a heavy humectant load it is coherent, and the honest way to buy it is as a hydrating lotion whose water phase is unusually nice.

Disclosed: heartleaf water at 77 percent, position 1 Fragrance-free: yes

Blanc Nature 9x Concentrated Heartleaf Toner

The highest disclosed heartleaf extract level we found, which makes it the top of the ladder that counts.

Heartleaf extract is second of 38, printed at 100,000 parts per million. That is 10 percent, and at a second position it is above the one percent line where the Korean ordering rule still ranks, so the figure and the position agree with each other.

Ten percent of an extract is a serious inclusion. Set it against the hydrosol above and the difference in kind becomes obvious: one is a concentrated preparation at a tenth of the formula, the other is a distillate standing in for water.

One thing to check before buying. Salicylic acid is on this label and it is what puts the product on the pregnancy caution list. A toner sold on a soothing botanical that also carries a keratolytic is not the same purchase as a plain soothing toner, and the page does not lead with that.

There is no fragrance entry.

Disclosed: heartleaf extract at 10 percent Fragrance-free: yes

Efilow Heartleaf 80 Hyalucica Trouble Soothing Toner

The middle of the extract ladder, and a name worth reading carefully.

Heartleaf extract is sixth of 33, printed at 8,250 parts per million, which is 0.825 percent.

The 80 in the product name is not the extract level. It is not 80 percent of anything disclosed on the ingredient list, and the figure that is disclosed is 0.825 percent. A number in a product name is not a concentration unless the label says so, and this is the second time on this page that the headline figure and the printed figure describe different things.

At just over eight tenths of a percent this is a real inclusion, roughly a twelfth of the Blanc Nature level and well above the bottom of the ladder.

No fragrance entry, no pregnancy caution ingredient.

Disclosed: heartleaf extract at 8,250 parts per million Fragrance-free: yes

Abib Heartleaf Essence Pad Clear Touch

A disclosed extract figure on a format where the delivery is doing as much as the formula.

Heartleaf extract is sixth of 38, at 7,150 parts per million, which is 0.715 percent. Niacinamide is fourth, panthenol ninth and allantoin eleventh, so the soothing case here rests on a group rather than on the botanical alone.

The format is the thing to understand. This is a dual sided pad: a plain hole type side the brand tells you to leave on the cheeks for fifteen minutes, and a hook textured side assigned to wiping away keratin and sebum.

That matters for how you read its numbers. The brand publishes a keratin improvement figure of 94.13 percent, and the hook side is a textured wipe, so a keratin reading taken after wiping is substantially recording mechanical removal. Searching the 38 entries for the exfoliating acid class returns nothing, so there is no chemical exfoliant to credit. A hydration figure of 274 percent has the same shape: readings immediately after a water heavy essence routinely jump like that off a small baseline, and the brand's own footnote marks the effect temporary.

The soothing and mark figures do come with a named contract laboratory, twenty participants and a stated window, which is more disclosure than most pages carry.

Because the pad is a wipe, do not pair it with an acid or a retinoid in the same session. The conflict is mechanical rather than chemical.

Disclosed: heartleaf extract at 7,150 parts per million Fragrance-free: yes

Abib Heartleaf Calming Toner Skin Booster

The bottom of the disclosed extract ladder, on a short and readable label.

Heartleaf extract is eighth of 23, printed at 3,500 parts per million, which is 0.35 percent.

Twenty three entries is short enough to read in full, and the figure is about a twenty eighth of the Blanc Nature level. Both products are toners, both are sold on heartleaf, and both print their number. Without the numbers you would have no way to tell them apart, which is the entire argument for disclosure and the reason this category is better than most.

It is worth repeating the caveat here rather than at the end. Because no dose response for heartleaf on skin has been established, a twenty eight fold gap in the bottle does not convert into a twenty eight fold gap on your face, or into any known ratio at all. What the number tells you is what you are buying, not what it will do.

No fragrance entry, no pregnancy caution ingredient.

Disclosed: heartleaf extract at 3,500 parts per million Fragrance-free: yes

So what should you do with all this?

Find the extract entry and read its number. Skip past the hydrosol, however large its figure. On this page the printed extract levels run from 10 percent down to 0.35 percent, a spread of about twenty eight fold, and every one of those products is sold the same way on the front of the box.

Do not convert the number into an expectation. No dose response on human skin has been established for this ingredient, so a bigger figure means more of it in the bottle and nothing more specific than that.

Read the ingredient beside it. In three of the five products here, niacinamide, panthenol or allantoin is doing work with a better evidence base than the botanical, and in one case a salicylic acid is present that changes what the product is for. The soothing aisle generally is where Korean brands disclose most often, which makes it the best place to learn to read numbers.

And treat the cell culture results as what they are: a real reason the ingredient is interesting, and not a claim about your face. If a page tells you heartleaf calms irritated skin, clears acne or fades marks, it has gone past everything published here.

Common questions

Is heartleaf the same as houttuynia?

Yes. Houttuynia cordata is the plant, heartleaf is the English common name, and Korean labels print it as 약모밀 in the ingredient list while the front of the box usually says 어성초.

Is heartleaf good for acne?

The antibacterial work is broth based laboratory testing of the essential oil, not the extract, and not on skin. Several heartleaf products aimed at breakouts carry a salicylic acid, and on this page that is the ingredient with the mechanism.

Why is one product 77 percent and another 10 percent?

Because they are different materials. The 77 percent is a hydrosol replacing the water phase; the 10 percent is a concentrated extract. The second number is smaller and means considerably more.

Does a higher heartleaf percentage work better?

Nobody has established that on skin. A higher figure means more of the ingredient is in the bottle, which is worth knowing and is not the same as a stronger result.

Is heartleaf safe?

No safety assessment for heartleaf extract turned up in the record we read, which is a gap rather than a negative finding. It is very widely used with no signal we are aware of, and a patch test is the sensible move with any concentrated botanical.

If you have a heartleaf product and cannot tell whether its number belongs to the water or the extract, send us the listing and we will find both entries.