ilso Super Melting Sebum Softener

What is this product?

Reach for this ilso product if the goal is a rinse off pore softening lotion that works by enzyme rather than by acid. Papain sits at position 31 of 44 with papaya fruit extract at 23 as its source material, and there is no BHA, no AHA and no PHA anywhere in the list, which is unusual for a pore and blackhead product. Two polyglyceryl-10 esters at positions 10 and 14 give it genuine cleanser content, and the statutory notice requires rinsing afterwards. Two things to know before trusting the numbers here. The ingredient list comes from drugstore retail rather than from the brand, because the brand's own page carries its detail entirely as images, and the brand's headline sales and number one claims carry no stated basis at all.

What makes it different?

The pore mechanism is enzymatic rather than acidic: papain and papaya fruit extract carry it, and the list contains no exfoliating acid of any class. Botanical extracts make up twenty five of the forty four entries, headed by a run of roots, barks and mushrooms at positions 4 through 8 including reishi mushroom, willow bark, deodeok root and burdock root. No comparison against a category baseline is made here, because no such baseline was measured for this record. It is also a soak and lift product rather than a scrub, applied on a cotton pad for ten to fifteen minutes and then removed with an applicator, which is a different use pattern from the rub on granular scrubs it shares a shelf with.

What is in it?

The full ingredient list as the brand publishes it, in the printed order. Each name links to what we know about that ingredient.

This brand publishes its ingredient list in Korean only. Names below are the matching INCI names from the Korean Cosmetic Association ingredient dictionary, except 3 with no dictionary entry, left in Korean.

Key ingredient

• Water
• 1,2-Hexanediol
• Glycerin
• Ganoderma Lucidum (Mushroom) Extract
• Salix Alba (Willow) Bark Extract
• 더덕뿌리추출물
• Arctium Lappa Root Extract
• 시넨스국화꽃추출물
• Butylene Glycol
• Polyglyceryl-10 Oleate
• 겨우살이잎추출물
• Hamamelis Virginiana (Witch Hazel) Extract
• Hydrogenated Lecithin
• Polyglyceryl-10 Isostearate
• Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Extract
• Phytosterols
• Ethylhexylglycerin
• Illicium Verum (Anise) Fruit Extract
• Sodium Gluconate
• Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil
• Panthenol
• Scutellaria Baicalensis Root Extract
• Carica Papaya (Papaya) Fruit Extract
• Squalane
• Glucose
• Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract
• Centella Asiatica Extract
• Prunus Mume Fruit Extract
• Malus Domestica Fruit Extract
• Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Fruit Extract
• Papain
• Houttuynia Cordata Extract
• Chamaecyparis Obtusa Leaf Extract
• Origanum Vulgare Leaf Extract
• Portulaca Oleracea Extract
• Cinnamomum Cassia Bark Extract
• Lactobacillus/Soybean Ferment Extract
• Madecassoside
• Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract
• Citric Acid
• Gardenia Florida Fruit Extract
• Polygonum Cuspidatum Root Extract
• Myrciaria Dubia Fruit Extract
• Terminalia Ferdinandiana Fruit Extract

Ingredients with no mark are ones we found nothing notable about, and when marks overlap on one ingredient we show the caution first.

We could not place these in the list above: 라벤더오일, 폴리글리세릴-10올리에이트, 폴리글리세릴-10아이소스테아레이트, 스쿠알란

Did the ad claims hold up?

We checked 4 lines this product advertises against the ingredient list and public documents. One of them holds up. The rest are only partly right or have nothing behind them.

Each line is quoted as the brand published it, and each one was read on its own against the ingredient list and the documents the brand publishes.

How we read these lines