PHYSIOGEL Red Soothing Cica Balance Cream

What is this product?

Physiogel's Red Soothing Cica Balance Cream is a genuinely good pick for oily or combination skin that reacts easily: 28 ingredients with no plant oil, no butter, no fatty alcohol, no fragrance and no dye, built on light hydrocarbon emollients with a soft-focus powder for a matte finish and niacinamide eighth. Just do not buy it for the cica. Physiogel discloses the amounts, which is rare and creditable, and they come to roughly 246 ppm of centella fractions (madecassoside 245 ppm, asiaticoside 0.40, madecassic acid 0.35, asiatic acid 0.25), about 0.025 percent, under copy that promises an end to year-round breakouts, and Physiogel publishes no acne trial behind that promise.

What makes it different?

Two things separate this from the cica-cream crowd. The centella arrives as four purified fractions with published amounts instead of as an unquantified whole extract, which is more honest than the category norm and also shows how little of it there is. And the base contains no plant oil, butter or fatty alcohol at all, which almost no cream marketed for troubled skin manages. Watch two things: niacinamide sits eighth with no amount published, which matters because niacinamide flushing is itself a reported reaction, and three acrylate polymers close the list, the thickener class most prone to rolling under sunscreen or makeup applied too soon. A price-comparison listing tags the product with a whitening functional-cosmetic designation that the product's own Olive Young label record contradicts, since that record carries its functional-cosmetic review status as 해당사항 없음.

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.

Key ingredient

• Water
• Hydrogenated Polyisobutene
• Butylene Glycol
• Dipropylene Glycol
• 1,2-Hexanediol
• Glycerin
• Hydrogenated Polydecene
• Niacinamide
• Panthenol
• Trehalose
• Squalane
• Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride
• Beta-Glucan
• Polymethylsilsesquioxane
• Sorbitan Isostearate
• Acetamide MEA
• Sarcosine
• Palmitamide MEA
• Ceramide NP
• Hydrogenated Lecithin
• Madecassoside
• Asiaticoside
• Madecassic Acid
• Asiatic Acid
• Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer
• Hydroxyethyl Acrylate/Sodium Acryloyldimethyl Taurate Copolymer
• Glyceryl Acrylate/Acrylic Acid Copolymer
• Tromethamine

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: Sorbitan Isostearate

Did the ad claims hold up?

We checked 3 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.

• PHYSIOGEL Red Soothing Cica Balance Pore Control SerumAnother product in the same category
• PHYSIOGEL Cicabalance For Men Calming CreamAnother product in the same category