Korean Cleanser: 4 Fatty Acids Sensitive Skin Should Check

I'm Dr. Hongseok Kim, a board-certified Korean dermatologist with 21 years of practice and the medical director of VOS Dermatology Clinic in Gangnam, Seoul, in front of Dosan Park. At VOS I see every patient myself, from the consultation to the treatment.

Visitors often ask which Korean cleanser they should buy, especially if their skin is sensitive or breaks out. I don't recommend brands on this page. Instead, I'll show you the four ingredients I check first on any cleanser's label and how to decide whether a cleanser belongs in your daily routine or only in a weekly deep clean. This page is based on my YouTube video from March 2024; I rewrote it for readers abroad. The video above can be watched with translated captions.

Who needs to be careful with cleansers

If your skin feels dry, has many fine lines, flushes often or breaks out easily, start with a cleanser that does not contain four particular fatty acids (in the video at 00:14).

Sensitive skin makes cleansing hard: it gets dry, red and prone to small breakouts. In earlier videos I suggested keeping cleansing short. Without make-up, about a minute is enough. With make-up, take one to two minutes to remove it and about a minute for the second cleanse, aiming for three minutes in total and never more than five (in the video at 00:41). Yet when I looked at the cleansers people buy because they seem gentle, many contain fairly strong surfactants (in the video at 01:05).

Why "squeaky clean" is not the goal

That squeaky-clean feeling usually means your cleanser has also removed the skin's own moisturising components (in the video at 01:44).

Many people love the feeling that everything has been stripped off. But when cleansing goes that far, moisturising factors and other components of the skin are washed away too, and the skin becomes much drier (in the video at 01:56). That is why the choice of cleanser matters more than people think, particularly for sensitive skin.

How surfactants work

Surfactants let oil and water mix, which is what allows a cleanser to lift oil off your skin and rinse it away with water (in the video at 02:09).

A surfactant has a water-loving head and a water-repelling tail (in the video at 03:06). The longer the tail, the larger the molecule. Surfactants are named by the charge of the head: anionic, cationic, amphoteric or non-ionic (in the video at 03:35). Lotions and creams also contain surfactants; that is why they look white rather than clear. Here I focus on one group, anionic surfactants, and in particular fatty acids (in the video at 03:49). You may know fatty acids as part of the skin barrier, together with ceramides and cholesterol. In a moisturiser they support the barrier, but in a cleanser they ionise in water, the head becomes negatively charged, and they act as a cleansing agent (in the video at 04:29).

The four fatty acids to check on a Korean cleanser label

Look for lauric acid, myristic acid, palmitic acid and stearic acid; they are common in cleansers and clean strongly (in the video at 04:42).

These four have a stronger cleansing effect and a much smaller molecular size than many other anionic surfactants, so they can penetrate the skin more (in the video at 04:58). That makes them stronger cleansers than you might expect, and they tend to leave skin squeaky. Deep-cleansing products and cleansers aimed at acne and excess oil usually contain them (in the video at 05:28). Using such a product once or twice a week is fine. Used every day because it cleans so well, it acts as a strong surfactant and takes lipids from your skin, which can make it drier and more sensitive (in the video at 05:40).

So read your current cleanser's ingredient list. If it contains these fatty acids, use it once or twice a week rather than daily, unless your skin is robust and handles anything (in the video at 06:06). The four differ only in tail length, 12, 14, 16 and 18 carbons; in bar soap, more stearic acid makes a harder bar and more lauric or myristic acid a softer one (in the video at 06:43).

If your skin is oily or acne-prone

For oily skin with blackheads, these cleansers can be useful as a short, gentle deep cleanse (in the video at 07:20).

If you produce a lot of sebum, or it sits in the pores like blackheads, a fatty-acid cleanser dissolves that sebum well even with light, gentle massage (in the video at 07:32). The problem comes with rubbing too long: it affects the normal skin around the pores and can leave it drier. Keep the deep cleanse short and reduce your overall cleansing time (in the video at 07:57). In fact, very oily skin can run into the opposite problem: a cleanser that is too mild or weakly acidic may not remove enough sebum (in the video at 08:49). For this skin type the four fatty acids are not "bad" (in the video at 09:14). What a cleanser cannot do for acne is covered in my guide to Korean face care for acne, and soothing ingredients are explained in my video note on Korean beauty for acne.

Reading the ingredient list

Many cleansers contain all four fatty acids, others only one; the closer they are to the front of the list, the higher the amount (in the video at 08:10).

When they appear near the beginning, the content is higher and sensitive skin is more likely to react (in the video at 08:22). A practical approach is to set those products aside as deep cleansers and pick one cleanser without them for daily use (in the video at 08:35). Dry, sensitive skin with smooth texture and barely visible pores does not need cleansing this strong; repeating it only raises the chance of irritation (in the video at 09:28). If you are not sure which group you belong to, the clinic reads it with a skin type analysis such as VOS Skin MBTI. For the rest of a sensitive-skin routine, see Korean skincare routine for sensitive skin, and for whether clinic care or home care fits you, my guide to Korea skin care, clinic vs routine. Our creator experiences at VOS show how visitors combined both.

Results vary from person to person, and the right routine for your skin is decided at an in-person consultation.

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Results, swelling and recovery vary from person to person. This page is general information from VOS Dermatology Clinic based on Dr. Kim's video and does not replace an in-person consultation.