Beauty of Joseon, Decoded: The Bestsellers Worth Your Shelf

If your For You page has looked like a Beauty of Joseon fan account lately, you're not imagining it — this brand has quietly become one of the most-repurchased names in K-beauty. Quick answer: Beauty of Joseon is a hanbok-branded Korean skincare line built around rice, ginseng, and traditional Korean ingredients, and its most-loved products are the Relief Sun for gentle daily SPF, rice-based toners and serums for glow, and the Dynasty Cream for deep hydration. Here's what's actually worth adding to your routine, and why.

What Beauty of Joseon Is Known For

Beauty of Joseon leans into Korea's history — the brand name itself nods to the Joseon dynasty, and its formulas borrow from ingredients used in traditional Korean beauty rituals: rice, mugwort, ginseng, red bean, and adzuki extracts. The brand built its global reputation almost entirely on word of mouth, thanks to two things: sunscreens that don't feel like sunscreen, and rice-powered glow products that actually deliver a lit-from-within finish without irritation.

What sets it apart from other Korean skincare brands isn't flashy packaging or trend-chasing — it's consistency. Formulas are gentle enough for sensitive and combination skin, fragrance is kept minimal, and pricing stays accessible, which is a big part of why it's become a staple in K-beauty starter routines. You can browse the full range in the Beauty of Joseon collection to see how deep the rice-and-ginseng story goes.

The Hero Lineup, Decoded

Before you buy everything with a hanbok illustration on it, here's how the actual bestsellers stack up against each other.

Product	Best For	Key Ingredient	Texture
Relief Sun: Rice + Probiotics	Daily SPF under makeup, sensitive skin	Rice bran water, probiotics	Watery, no white cast
Matte Sun Stick: Mugwort + Camelia	Oily/combo skin, on-the-go reapplication	Mugwort, camelia oil	Semi-matte stick
Green Plum Refreshing Cleanser	Dull, tired skin needing a fresh reset	Green plum extract, AHA/BHA trace	Light gel-foam
Dynasty Cream	Dry, dehydrated, mature-leaning skin	Ginseng, red ginseng	Rich, balm-like
Red Bean Water Gel	Oily/combo skin wanting hydration without heaviness	Red bean (adzuki) extract	Bouncy, lightweight gel

Relief Sun: Rice + Probiotics — The Sunscreen People Actually Reach For

This is the product that put Beauty of Joseon on the map globally, and it earns the hype. It's a chemical sunscreen with a watery, almost weightless finish, no white cast, and rice bran water plus probiotics folded in to keep skin calm instead of stripped. If you've avoided SPF because it always pills or sits heavy, Relief Sun: Rice + Probiotics (50ml) is the one that finally makes daily sunscreen feel like skincare, not a chore.

Matte Sun Stick: Mugwort + Camelia — SPF You Can Reapply Over Makeup

For anyone who needs SPF that survives a full day at a desk, in transit, or outdoors, the stick format matters. The Matte Sun Stick: Mugwort + Camelia (18g) glides on without disturbing makeup and mugwort helps take the edge off any redness or heat in the skin — a genuinely convenient companion to the Relief Sun rather than a replacement for it.

Rice-Based Glow Products — The Ingredient the Brand Is Built On

Beauty of Joseon's rice lineage runs through nearly everything, including its well-known rice-based toners and serums that focus on brightening and softening texture. Rice water has long been used in Korean beauty for its ability to even tone and add a subtle sheen, and it's the throughline connecting the brand's glow-focused formulas — the reason so many routines built around this brand end up with a noticeably dewier finish over a few weeks.

Green Plum Refreshing Cleanser — For Skin That Looks Tired, Not Dirty

This cleanser skews gentler and brighter than a typical daily cleanser. Green plum extract gives it a slightly tart, refreshing quality that's less about deep-cleaning and more about waking up dull, congested-looking skin without over-drying. The Green Plum Refreshing Cleanser (100ml) works well as a morning cleanser or a second cleanse in the evening after an oil-based first step.

Dynasty Cream — The Rich Answer for Dry, Tired Skin

If the rest of the line leans light and watery, Dynasty Cream is the outlier — and it's meant to be. Built around ginseng and red ginseng, it's a genuinely nourishing, occlusive-leaning moisturizer for skin that needs more than a gel to feel comfortable, especially through colder months or after retinoid use. It comes in two sizes, Dynasty Cream (100ml) for daily use and Dynasty Cream (50ml) if you want to try it before committing to the bigger jar.

Red Bean Water Gel — Hydration Without the Heaviness

For oily or combination skin that still wants a proper moisturizer, the Red Bean Water Gel (100ml) is the middle ground between a toner and a cream. Red bean extract is traditionally used in Korean beauty for its de-puffing, oil-balancing reputation, and the gel texture sinks in fast enough to layer under sunscreen without pilling.

Who Should Shop Beauty of Joseon

This brand tends to work especially well for three groups: people with sensitive or reactive skin who need gentle, low-fragrance formulas; K-beauty beginners who want a well-reviewed, low-risk entry point into Korean skincare; and anyone chasing that glass-skin glow without a ten-step routine. If you're newer to Korean skincare overall and want more brand context before you commit, our guide to must-have K-beauty brands for your routine is a good next read.

How to Build a Simple Beauty of Joseon Routine

You don't need every product to see results. A simple, effective setup looks like: cleanse with the Green Plum Refreshing Cleanser, hydrate with either the Red Bean Water Gel (oily/combo) or Dynasty Cream (dry/mature), then finish every morning with Relief Sun — swapping in the Matte Sun Stick for midday touch-ups. From there, you can explore the rest of the Beauty of Joseon collection as your skin tells you what it needs next, whether that's more glow, more calm, or more richness.

The appeal of shopping the Beauty of Joseon collection as a whole is that the formulas are designed to layer well together — rice and ginseng show up across multiple steps, so you're not fighting conflicting ingredients between your cleanser, moisturizer, and sunscreen. It's part of why this brand has become such a reliable foundation, whether you're building your first Korean skincare routine or slotting a few heroes into an existing one from the Beauty of Joseon lineup.

FAQ

Is Beauty of Joseon geschikt voor de gevoelige huid?

Ja, over het algemeen wel. Het merk houdt parfum tot een minimum beperkt en werkt met kalmerende ingrediënten zoals rijst, bijvoet en probiotica, waardoor het vaak wordt aanbevolen voor een gevoelige of snel geïrriteerde huid. Toch blijft het verstandig om een nieuw product eerst even uit te testen op een klein stukje huid.

Wat is het bekendste product van Beauty of Joseon?

De Relief Sun zonnebrandcrème wordt algemeen gezien als het breakout-product van het merk, bekend om zijn lichte textuur en afwerking zonder witte waas. De rice-based glowproducten volgen op de voet in populariteit.

Is de Relief Sun zonnebrandcrème chemisch of mineraal?

Het is een chemische zonnebrandcrème (met organische filters), en dat is mede de reden waarom je hem zo dun kunt aanbrengen en hij zich zonder witte waas laat uitsmeren, in tegenstelling tot veel minerale formules.

Moet ik de Dynasty Cream of de Red Bean Water Gel gebruiken?

Kies op basis van je huidtype en het seizoen: Red Bean Water Gel is geschikt voor een vette of gecombineerde huid, of voor een huid die in een vochtig klimaat behoefte heeft aan hydratatie zonder zwaar gevoel, terwijl Dynasty Cream geschikt is voor een droge, uitgedroogde of rijpere huid die behoefte heeft aan rijkere, langerdurende hydratatie.

Kan ik de Matte Sun Stick gebruiken in plaats van de Relief Sun?

Ze werken het best in combinatie met elkaar, niet als vervanging voor elkaar. Gebruik de Relief Sun 's ochtends als basislaag SPF en de Matte Sun Stick voor een handige hertoepassing gedurende de dag, vooral over je make-up heen.

Written by Hyerin Park

Hyerin has always loved shopping—fashion, beauty, and pretty much anything worth adding to cart. Since starting Baerry, that habit has turned into testing dozens of new beauty products that land on the team’s desks in Seoul, plus plenty she buys herself. An ISTJ with a very high bar for what makes the cut, she treats her own face as the testing ground before recommending anything.