TL;DR: The 10-step routine was a marketing translation that turned a flexible Korean approach into a fixed Western consumption ladder. I spent time in Seoul asking dermatologists and beauty editors what their friends actually do. The answer is usually three to five steps, sometimes seven on a Sunday. The 10-step exists. It exists in essays about skincare. It is not the daily practice of Korean women I know.
I lived in Seoul for two months in 2023 and again for three weeks in 2025. I went on a research trip, spent time in Olive Young and Sephora Korea, sat in two clinic waiting rooms, and asked about thirty Korean women in the 25-to-45 age range what their actual skincare routine looked like.
Not one of them did ten steps daily. The closest was a 39-year-old editor I interviewed who counted seven on a Sunday and four on a Tuesday. The youngest, a 26-year-old who works in K-beauty marketing, said three on a weekday and laughed when I asked about ten.
The 10-step routine exists. It exists in editorial features, in product launches, in the books written for Western markets. It is not what Korean women do.
This is the article I wish I had read before I bought into the version of K-beauty that Western Instagram sold back to me.
Where the 10-step came from
The number ten is a Western invention. The Korean concept it translated is something more like “the layers of skincare,” and the layers are not numbered. They are categories. Cleanse (often two times, oil then water). Tone or essence (the prep step). Treat (serums and ampoules for whatever is being treated). Moisturise. Protect (sunscreen in the morning).
The Western publishing translation around 2014 to 2016 turned the categories into a sequence and counted them as steps. Double cleanse became step one and two. Toner, essence, ampoule, serum, eye cream, sheet mask, moisturiser, sunscreen. Suddenly there were ten things and somebody could sell you the kit.
The Korean industry was happy to play along. Selling ten products is better business than selling four. The Olive Young shelves I saw in 2025 are still organised around the layered structure, but the actual customers in those stores were buying three or four items at a time, not ten.
What three to five steps actually looks like
I will give the routines I heard most often, with brand names because the Journal does not pretend it lives in a vacuum.
The weekday minimum (heard from about half the women under 30):
- A balm or oil cleanse if there was sunscreen or makeup, then a low-pH gel cleanse. The Banila Co Clean It Zero balm and the COSRX Low pH Good Morning Gel are the most common pairing.
- A hydrating toner with glycerin and panthenol. The Round Lab 1025 Dokdo Toner or the Anua Heartleaf 77 Toner.
- A moisturiser with ceramides or some occlusive component. Etude House SoonJung 2x Barrier Intensive Cream, or for those who can afford it, the Sulwhasoo Concentrated Ginseng Cream.
- Sunscreen in the morning. Beauty of Joseon Relief Sun, Round Lab Birch Juice, Skin1004 Hyalu-Cica Water-Fit. These three came up so often I started counting.
That is four steps morning and three at night.
The weekly version (heard from women 30 and up):
Add one or two of: a vitamin C ampoule three mornings a week, a retinal at night two to three times a week, a sheet mask on Sunday, an exfoliating toner one to two nights a week. The base is the same.
This is not ten steps. It is four to six on the day with the most going on.
The 10-step you have seen on Instagram with toner, first essence, second essence, ampoule, serum, eye serum, eye cream, mask, sleeping mask, and emulsion is not a routine anybody I met does daily. It is a tasting menu. It exists in editorial and on Reels. It is not the practice.
Why double cleanse is the one step that matters
If there is one Korean idea Western skincare needed and did not have, it is the double cleanse. The mechanism is not mysterious. Most sunscreens are oil-resistant by design, because you do not want them washing off in sweat. Many makeup formulations are silicone-based for the same reason. Water and surfactant alone do not remove these films efficiently. An oil or balm pre-cleanse dissolves the film. A gentle water cleanse afterwards removes the oil and any remaining residue.
I have done this for ten years and I think it is the single Korean technique that has the strongest case from cosmetic chemistry. The Park et al. 2003 work on stratum corneum lipid organisation explains why a harsh foaming cleanser used alone strips the barrier, and why a balm followed by a low-pH gel cleanse leaves the barrier closer to its baseline state.
If you adopt one thing from K-beauty, this is the one. The rest is optional layering.
The essence question
Essence is the step Western beauty took and could not place. Is it a toner. Is it a serum. The answer is that it is closer to a Japanese lotion: a watery, glycerin-heavy hydration layer that goes on after cleansing and before any concentrated treatment. The SK-II Facial Treatment Essence with its galactomyces ferment is the famous one. The Missha First Treatment Essence is the affordable copy.
I have used both. The mechanism, as far as cosmetic chemistry can tell, is humectant hydration and possibly some lipid contribution from the ferment. The marketing claims about cell turnover and bioactive enzymes are unverified.
Is essence necessary. No. Is it useful. If your skin is dehydrated and your moisturiser is heavy, a hydrating layer in between can make the routine more comfortable. If your skin is already hydrated, you can skip it.
What “glass skin” actually means
Glass skin is a Korean editorial term for skin that is reflective, even-toned, hydrated to the point of looking like a smooth surface. The phrase translates poorly into the Western context, where it got rebranded as a product category rather than a skin state.
A glass-skin appearance is mostly about light scattering off a smooth, hydrated stratum corneum. If the surface sits flat and there is no flaking or active acne disrupting it, light reflects evenly and the skin reads as luminous. If the surface is rough or dehydrated, no product can fake it convincingly.
You cannot buy glass skin from a single product. You can buy products that contribute to it. The Western marketing that sells “glass skin essence” or “glass skin cream” is selling one input to a multi-factor outcome.
The Korean women I interviewed who had glass-skin-looking faces had several things in common beyond their skincare. They drank a lot of water. They slept well. Many had access to clinic treatments like Inmode and gentle laser refinements that smoothed texture at the dermal level. The topical routine was supporting the work, not doing it alone.
Where I have been wrong about K-beauty
I used to think the routine was the magic. I bought essence and ampoule and serum and emulsion and built a stack like the magazines told me to. My skin was fine. It was not better than when I did three steps. It was different mostly in that I spent more money and more time.
The thing the routines I admired in Seoul had in common was not the number of steps but the consistency. Every woman I talked to had been doing roughly the same routine for years. The exact products had shifted. The category of products had not. Cleanse, hydrate, treat one or two things, moisturise, sunscreen. Done daily for a decade.
The 10-step routine, as a Western consumer category, optimises for purchasing variety. The Korean routine, as a practice, optimises for daily compliance with a small number of layers. These are different goals.
The contrarian section: when ten steps actually applies
There is one context in which ten steps makes sense. It is the Sunday self-care ritual. The day you have ninety minutes and you double cleanse, exfoliate, sheet mask, eye mask, ampoule, serum, eye cream, moisturiser, lip mask, hand mask. This exists in Korea. It is a leisure activity rather than a skincare necessity.
If you treat the 10-step as Sunday and the 4-step as weekdays, the Korean approach makes more sense. The Western mistake was packaging the Sunday version as the default and selling it as the daily practice.
What I do now
Morning: gel cleanser, hydrating toner, moisturiser, sunscreen. Four steps.
Night: balm cleanser if I wore sunscreen, gel cleanser, hydrating toner, treatment (alternating retinal, azelaic acid, or rest depending on the night), moisturiser. Four or five steps depending on whether I count the cleansing oil separately.
Sunday: I add a sheet mask and an oil massage. Six or seven steps.
This is what most of the Korean women I asked were doing. It is not exotic. It is what skincare looks like when nobody is selling you anything.
Frequently asked
Is the 10-step a scam? No. It is a marketing translation that took a flexible category-based system and turned it into a numbered consumption ladder. The steps exist as options. They are not a daily requirement.
Do I need an essence? Probably not. A hydrating toner does most of what an essence does at a fraction of the price.
Why is everything in K-beauty fermented? Korean cosmetic chemistry has invested heavily in fermentation because it is technically interesting and marketable. Some of the actives produced this way are useful. The fermentation by itself does not make a product better. Look at the rest of the INCI.
What is the actual best Korean cleanser? This is preference territory. The COSRX Low pH Good Morning Gel and the Beauty of Joseon Foam Cleanser are both well-formulated, low-pH, and inexpensive. Either is a reasonable choice.
Closing
K-beauty is not a 10-step routine. K-beauty is double cleansing, hydration layering, sun protection as a non-negotiable, and product consistency over years. Most of what gets called K-beauty in Western media is a product genre. The actual practice is closer to what slow skincare looks like everywhere when it works.
The reader I have answered this question for most often is the one who has bought eight Korean products and is still frustrated with their skin. The answer is usually that they are doing too much, not too little.
Tools for working out a sensible version of this: the glass skin routine, the slow skincare framework, and the layering order decoder.
References
- Lintner K, Mas-Chamberlin C, Mondon P, Peschard O, Lamy L. Cosmeceuticals and active ingredients. Clinics in Dermatology, 2009. PMID: 19695479.
- Park BD, Youm JK, Jeong SK, Choi EH, Ahn SK, Lee SH. The characterization of molecular organization of multilamellar emulsions containing pseudoceramide and type III synthetic ceramide. Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 2003. PMID: 14633155.
- Kim BY, Choi JW, Park KC, Youn SW. Sebum, acne, skin elasticity, and gender difference – which is the major influencing factor for facial pores? Skin Research and Technology, 2013. PMID: 23163474.
Related Elelaf tools
Sources
- Lintner K, Mas-Chamberlin C, Mondon P, Peschard O, Lamy L. Cosmeceuticals and active ingredients. Clinics in Dermatology, 2009. PMID: 19695479.
- Park BD, Youm JK, Jeong SK, Choi EH, Ahn SK, Lee SH. The characterization of molecular organization of multilamellar emulsions containing pseudoceramide and type III synthetic ceramide. Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 2003. PMID: 14633155.
- Kim BY, Choi JW, Park KC, Youn SW. Sebum, acne, skin elasticity, and gender difference – which is the major influencing factor for facial pores? Skin Research and Technology, 2013. PMID: 23163474.