Torriden Balanceful Cica Pore Cleansing Foam

What is this product?

Torriden Balanceful Cica Pore Cleansing Foam is a 150 ml soap-based wash that takes sebum off well and is not the all skin types product its page claims, because a saponified potassium soap base is wrong for dry or reactive skin whatever the betaines under it soften. The cica half is better documented than most, with centella extract at a disclosed 2,002ppm plus all four isolated centella triterpenes.

What makes it different?

Two things separate it. A traditional saponified foam that discloses its centella level at 2,002ppm and carries all four isolated centella triterpenes is an unusually specific soothing package to put inside a soap base. But it pairs that with salicylic acid placed ahead of the centella block, so it sells pore work and soothing at once from a construction that suits sebum removal better than it suits either claim.

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
• Stearic Acid
• Lauric Acid
• Glyceryl Stearate
• Myristic Acid
• Potassium Hydroxide
• Coco-Betaine
• Niacinamide
• Lauryl Betaine
• Potassium Cocoyl Glycinate
• Propanediol
• Salicylic Acid
• Zinc Hydrolyzed Hyaluronate
• Centella Asiatica Extract
• Madecassoside
• Asiaticoside
• Madecassic Acid
• Asiatic Acid
• Panthenol
• Gluconolactone
• Allantoin
• Tocopherol
• Althaea Rosea Flower Extract
• Lactobacillus Ferment
• Nymphaea Caerulea Flower Extract
• Swertia Japonica Extract
• Palmitoyl Dipeptide-7
• Acetyl Glucosamine
• Sodium Acetate
• Dextrin
• Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer
• Sodium Chloride
• Caprylyl Glycol
• Hydroxypropyl Starch Phosphate
• Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate
• Ethylhexylglycerin
• Gardenia Florida Fruit Extract
• 1,2-Hexanediol
• Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Oil
• Glyceryl Glucoside
• Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate

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: Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Oil, Glyceryl Stearate, Myristic Acid, Lauric Acid, Stearic Acid, Salicylic Acid

Did the ad claims hold up?

We checked 5 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

What else is worth seeing?

Products we read alongside this one.

• COSRX Salicylic Acid Daily Gentle CleanserAnother product in the same category
• Torriden Dive-In Low Molecular Hyaluronic Acid Cleansing FoamThe gentler one of the two
• beplain Mung Bean Weakly Acidic Cleansing FoamThe gentler one of the two
• innisfree Volcanic BHA Pore Cleansing FoamAnother product in the same category

Which articles cover it?

Articles on this site that write about this product.

• Pregnancy and Korean skincare: it is mostly the BHA, not the retinolOf the Korean labels we screened, 154 carry a commonly cautioned ingredient. Three fifths of those are salicylates, and most are cleansers and toners.
• How much cica is actually in a cica cream?Five Korean cica products that print their own numbers, and a gap of more than four thousand fold between the top of the range and the bottom.
• What a Korean functional cosmetic label certifies, and what it does not기능성 화장품 means a filing cleared review for a named function. It is one of the sturdiest facts on a Korean label, once you know what it covers.