SKINEYE AC Pure Essential Lotion

What is this product?

SKINEYE AC Pure Essential Lotion is a 150ml translucent gel emulsion positioned for oily and sensitive skin, sold as the second step of a three item AC PURE set. Its thirty item legal panel runs eleven soothing botanical extracts in a row from tenth to twentieth, centella, baikal skullcap, licorice, chamomile, aloe, tea tree water and purslane among them, on a base of glycerin and butylene glycol with a single light ester and no oil, butter, silicone or wax at all. Two entries decide the fit: ethanol is fifth, which drives the fast matte dry-down buyers report and is the usual cause of stinging on compromised skin, and fragrance is thirtieth. The brand markets sebum control, but no sebum regulating active appears on the panel and the brand's own filing records the product as not a functional cosmetic for any indication.

What makes it different?

Two things set it apart from a standard soothing lotion. The soothing side is unusually broad rather than deep, eleven separate plant extracts in one consecutive run instead of one headline active at a disclosed strength, and none of them carries a published concentration. Against that, the base is genuinely oil free: not one oil, butter, silicone or wax on the whole list, which is rarer in an emulsion than the marketing bothers to say. The cost of that lightness is ethanol high on the list, which is what a reader with reactive skin needs to weigh.

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 ingredientWorth a closer look

• Water
• Glycerin
• Butylene Glycol
• Cetyl Ethylhexanoate
• Alcohol
• Octyldodecanol
• Betaine
• Allantoin
• Beta-Glucan
• Centella Asiatica Extract
• Polygonum Cuspidatum Root Extract
• Scutellaria Baicalensis Root Extract
• Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract
• Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Extract
• Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract
• Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Extract
• Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract
• Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) Leaf Water
• Portulaca Oleracea Extract
• Illicium Verum (Anise) Fruit Extract
• Silica
• Sorbitan Stearate
• Glyceryl Stearate
• PEG-100 Stearate
• Tromethamine
• Carbomer
• 1,2-Hexanediol
• Caprylyl Glycol
• Disodium EDTA
• Fragrance

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: 솔비탄스테아레이트, 글리세릴스테아레이트, 피이지-100스테아레이트, 세틸에틸헥사노에이트

Did the ad claims hold up?

We checked 12 lines this product advertises against the ingredient list and public documents. 2 of them hold 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