OBgE Active Icing Soothing Gel

What is this product?

A Korean cooling gel from OBgE in a 150 mL tube, sold for redness, heat and puffiness after sun or exercise. The label is unusual in two ways. Aloe leaf water is the first of 47 entries and purified water only the fourth, and the second entry is a denatured alcohol. That second fact is what makes the icing name work: there is no menthol, no menthyl lactate and no cooling amide anywhere in the list, so the chill comes from the alcohol flashing off, which is sharp, short and drying by the same mechanism. Seventeen amino acids and milk protein fill the middle of the label, five soothing botanicals sit near the end, and caffeine, the one entry that speaks to the puffiness claim, is the 47th and final ingredient. No fragrance and no essential oil is declared.

What makes it different?

The cooling mechanism is the differentiator and it runs opposite to the product name. Gels sold on an icing promise usually reach for menthol or a cooling amide; this one carries neither and gets its chill from a denatured alcohol in the second slot, which also makes it the drying option among cooling gels. The second distinguishing feature is the middle of the label: 17 amino acids plus milk protein, a conditioning block far larger than the soothing block the marketing leads 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 1 with no dictionary entry, left in Korean.

Key ingredientWorth a closer look

• Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Water
• Alcohol Denat.
• 1,2-Hexanediol
• Water
• PEG-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil
• Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer
• Tromethamine
• Glycerin
• Ethylhexylglycerin
• Pentylene Glycol
• Disodium EDTA
• Panthenol
• Dioscorea Japonica Root Extract
• Butylene Glycol
• Polyglyceryl-10 Laurate
• Decyl Glucoside
• Caprylyl Glycol
• Dipropylene Glycol
• Glycine
• Serine
• Glutamic Acid
• Polyglyceryl-10 Myristate
• Aspartic Acid
• Leucine
• Phenoxyethanol
• Coffea Arabica (Coffee) Seed Extract
• 우유단백질
• Alanine
• Lysine
• Arginine
• Tyrosine
• Phenylalanine
• Proline
• Threonine
• Valine
• Isoleucine
• Histidine
• Cysteine
• Methionine
• Viola Mandshurica Flower Extract
• Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract
• Cetyl Ethylhexanoate
• Ulmus Davidiana Root Extract
• Laminaria Japonica Extract
• Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride
• Ethylhexyl Palmitate
• Caffeine

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: 폴리글리세릴-10라우레이트, 폴리글리세릴-10미리스테이트

Did the ad claims hold up?

We checked 4 lines this product advertises against the ingredient list and public documents. None of them hold up on their own. They are partly right at best.

Claims translated from Korean, originals preserved.

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

What else is worth seeing?

Products we read alongside this one.

• OBgE Pore Zero Oil Control SunstickAnother product in the same category