Review: COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence

 

As a longtime snail secretion fan, I’ve tried several of the well known Korean snail products, among them Benton’s, Mizon’s, and Missha’s. The Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence is the snailiest of all the snail products I’ve used. It is also the snail product that got me back into snail products after a long break.

Purpose: COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence is a lightweight hydrating essence that claims to smooth and moisturize skin.

Best suited for: All skin types.

Do not use if: You are sensitive to snail mucin or anything else in the ingredients list.

Image courtesy of COSRX and Triangle Studio for Fifty Shades of Snail and Memebox.

When and how to use: After cleansing and toning, smooth over face. Pat in if desired and continue with the rest of your skincare routine.

COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence ingredients:  Snail secretion filtrate, betaine, butylene glycol, 1,2-hexanediol, sodium hyaluronate, panthenol, arginine, allantoin, ethyl hexanediol, sodium polyacrylate, carbomer, phenoxyethanol

CosDNA analysis

Notable ingredients: The COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence is an incredible 96% snail secretion filtrate. It is, in other words, almost pure snail goo. This maximizes your chances of enjoying the benefits of snail mucin. This also leaves little room for anything else in the product. That other 4% contains small amounts of bland and generally non-irritating moisturizing agents, as well as a preservative. Which is a good thing in a skincare product, believe me.

Product comparisons: Instead of discussing the insignificant amounts of Not-Snail Stuff in the Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence, therefore, here I’m going to talk about how it differs from its two best-known competitors: Benton Snail Bee High Content Essence and Mizon Snail Repair Intensive Ampoule. The Benton product was one of my gateways into K-beauty, and I used it and then the Mizon product extensively for over a year. I loved both the Benton and Mizon snail goos, but they’re different animals altogether from COSRX’s version.

Image courtesy of COSRX and Triangle Studio for Fifty Shades of Snail and Memebox

Both Benton and Mizon pack their snail products full of additional extracts and actives to achieve additional effects. Mizon’s Snail Repair Intensive Ampoule is a traditional serum with a variety of peptides, which may offer anti-aging benefits. A light, watery gel, Benton Snail Bee High Content Essence also contains a peptide, as well as bee venom and the brightening agent arbutin, a milder form of hydroquinone. What Benton’s Snail Bee High Content Essence does not contain is an adequate preservative system, which can make the otherwise fantastic product pretty problematic.

All those extras can certainly enhance a product. What they can also do is increase the chances of adverse reactions, particularly in people with sensitive skin or who have issues with botanical extracts (or bee allergies, in Benton’s case). COSRX targets sensitive and troubled skin types and focuses on minimal ingredients lists for minimal risk. You won’t find row after row of tantalizing (but potentially irritating) botanical extracts or exciting-sounding pseudoactives here. Based on its short ingredients list, COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence has one job and one job only. It exists to provide nutrient-packed hydration to your skin.

Performance

And that’s exactly what it does.

COSRX stickers: Even my snail models are into them.

COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence is a clear, thick, slippery and slow-flowing substance that smells like nothing and feels exactly how you’d imagine purified snail slime would: smooth, dense, and lubricating. Spread over my face, the gloopy stuff also feels completely wonderful. As the product sinks in, the initial cooling, refreshing sensation turns into a deep hydration. On average, this essence raises my skin’s hydration level by about 10%. It’s not the highest, but it seems to penetrate the deepest and lasts a long time. And once the product absorbs, my skin looks and feels bare, but bare in the most supple, resilient way.

It doesn’t brighten. It doesn’t instantly erase dark spots or smooth away wrinkles. What COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence does is impart an incredible sense of comfort to my skin. It eases dryness, calms irritation, and makes my face feel smooth and healthy, deeply nourished and fortified against external irritants. In other words, COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence does for my face exactly what snail secretion in its purest form does for the happy little snails who secrete it.

Conclusion: I don’t usually get this enthused about a product that doesn’t do anything but moisturize, but there’s something about the COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence that just does it for me. I’m almost through with my first bottle of the stuff, and I bought a backup bottle of this ages ago so that I wouldn’t find myself without. When it comes to snail goo, this is the purest and, in my experience, the best of the best. Update: I have purchased and gone through three or four bottles of this stuff. I love it. I love it so much that I have changed its rating.

Rating: 4/5 5/5 HOLY GRAIL

Rating scale:

1 – This should be taken off the market.

2 – Caused me some problems; would not buy again.

3 – Meh. Neither great nor bad.

4 – Pretty good. Would buy again unless I find something better.

5 – I’ll never be in the market for a replacement unless this one is discontinued.