1. What is "Hwahae" (화해)?
Hwahe is a Korean beauty application that provides reliable information based on the products’ ingredients and honest reviews by users.
Koreans check the app regularly to see if the skincare product they want to purchase, or already purchased is suitable to their skin type or to see if three are any irritating ingredients.
2. What features does "Hwahae" have?
The Hwahae app has numerous of cool features for customers to find the skincare that would perfectly suit them and would not irritate it. Here we listed the most impactful ones:
✨ Ingredients breakdown
As you go through the process of registration, the app is gathering all the essential information about you, your skin and your concerns to give you the best recommendations for your skin type.
When evaluating if one product is safe to use on skin or not, Hwahae shows each product Skeen Deep rating (EWG). Click HERE and read more about it. The Skin Deep ingredient hazard score, from 1 to 10, reflects known and suspected hazards linked to the ingredients.
1~2 - low hazard,
3~6 - moderate hazards
7~10 - high hazards
✨ "By skin type" ingredients insights
It warns you if in one product it is an ingredient that can irritate your skin and clearly shows all the good ingredients for you in this product and how you can benefit from using it.
✨ “20 Ingredients to Avoid”
"Hwahae" also displays if any ingredient of a product belongs to the “20 Ingredients to Avoid”. This list has been extracted from the book called “The Secret of Korean Cosmetics” which was published in 2009 by a local expert.
Here is the list of "20 Ingredients to Avoid"
- BHT (Butylated hydroxytoluene) = butyl hydroxy toluene = dibutyl hydroxy toluene = butylated hydroxytoluene
- Mineral Oil
- BHA (Butylated hydroxyanisole)
- SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) = SLES (Sodium laureth sulfate)
- Sorbic acid
- Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane = Avobenzone = Parsol 1789
- Benzophenone-3 = Oxybenzone
- Imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl ureadiem, DMDM Hydantoin
- O-CYMEN-5-OL = Isopropyl methylphenol = Isopropyl Cresols
- Isopropyl alcohol
- Parfum (a.k.a. fragrance)
- Thymol
- Triethanolamine
- Triisopropanolamine
- Triclosan
- Parabens
- Phenoxyethanol
- Polyethylene glycol (PEG)
- Composite pigment
- Hormones
✨ Allergens
According to the Korea Ministry Food and Drug Safety (KMFDS) there are 25 main skin allergens (Jan. 1, 2020). From then on, all the fragrance allergens must be available to check on the package. These are:
- Amyl cinnamal
- Benzyl alcohol
- Cinnamyl alcohol
- Citral
- Eugenol
- Hydroxycitronellal
- Isoeugenol
- Amylcinnamyl alcohol
- Benzyl salicylate
- Cinnamal
- Coumarin
- Geraniol
- Anise ethanol
- Benzyl cinnamate
- Farnesol
- Butylphenyl methyl propional
- Linalul
- Benzyl benzoate
- Citronellol
- Hexylcinnamol
- Limonene
- Methyl 2-octinoate
- Alpha-isomethylionone
- Evernia prunastri (oakmoss) extract; and
- Evernia furfuracea (treemoss) extract.
Unfortunately, by now it is only Korean version available. If you want to register and check it out, here is the link to the article that has step-by-step guide on how to do it.