K-Beauty Hacks

Panthenol appears near the bottom of a lot of Korean ingredient lists and almost never on the front of the box. It is the ingredient a brand mentions when it has nothing more exciting to say. That is a strange fate for one of the few barrier ingredients with a controlled trial behind it. Researchers damaged healthy skin on purpose with a detergent, treated it, and measured the repair with an electron microscope. Here is what that trial measured, what the numbers mean in plain terms, and where panthenol fits in a routine.