If you have ever wandered through an Olive Young store (Seoul’s alternative to Sephora), you will know that Korean beauty trends are evolving at a rapid pace.
Shelves are packed with formulas that blend dermatological science with Tik-Tok‑ready textures as well as packaging, and during a recent visit, several ingredients jumped out as clear frontrunners shaping the next generation of K‑beauty.
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Among them, marine‑derived PDRN, microneedle‑like spicules, onion extract, a collection of barrier‑boosting ferments and peptides, and delivery systems.
But the ingredient dominating everything from shampoos to sheet masks right now is unmistakably PDRN – a marine-derived active that’s gone from professional clinic wound‑healing to an at‑home radiance essential.
PDRN: What it is and why it is popular
PDRN stands for Polydeoxyribonucleotide, a mixture of sodium salt DNA fragments (typically 50–1,500 kDa in size, but smaller and larger sizes do exist) originally derived from salmon or trout sperm.
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