Round Lab Birch Moisture Drop Serum

What is this product?

Round Lab's Birch Moisture Drop Serum suits anyone who wants hydration with nothing to react to: across its 33 ingredients there is no fragrance compound, no essential oil and no declared fragrance allergen at all. The birch it is named for is real and quantified at 10,967ppm, about 1.1 percent, sixth on the list, with birch-derived betulin listed separately at 26, though the water holding is mostly done by glycerin, propanediol and trehalose sitting above it. One thing to check before buying: bakuchiol is printed 30th, and while it is not a retinoid, it is sold across the category as a retinol alternative and its safety in pregnancy has not been established.

What makes it different?

Round Lab prints an amount for its headline botanical where most brands print none. For a serum sold on hydration it also carries three repair-adjacent ingredients that rarely appear together in one: spermidine at 13, sodium DNA at 20 and bakuchiol at 30. Cetearyl alcohol at 23 is a fatty alcohol that softens skin rather than the drying kind, so its presence is not a reason to avoid this. Round Lab publishes no pH for it, and no claim sentence for this serum appears on any Round Lab page collected, so the grading here rests on the label and the retail listing instead.

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
• Glycerin
• Propanediol
• Diphenyl Dimethicone
• 1,2-Hexanediol
• Betula Platyphylla Japonica Juice
• Trehalose
• Arginine
• Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer
• Xanthan Gum
• Ethylhexylglycerin
• Dextrin
• Spermidine
• Sodium Phytate
• Gardenia Florida Fruit Extract
• Glyceryl Caprylate
• Caprylic Acid
• Dipropylene Glycol
• Curcuma Longa (Turmeric) Root Extract
• Sodium DNA
• Sorbitan Olivate
• Cetearyl Olivate
• Cetearyl Alcohol
• Glyceryl Glucoside
• Hydrogenated Lecithin
• Betulin
• Butylene Glycol
• Carbomer
• Tocopherol
• Bakuchiol
• Sodium Hyaluronate
• Glycine
• Glutamic Acid

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 Olivate, Cetearyl Olivate, Cetearyl Alcohol

Did the ad claims hold up?

We checked 3 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.

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