The Korean Skincare Routine, from 10 Steps Down to 4

The Korean skincare routine is best known as a ten-step sequence. Most of those ten are optional, and the order matters more than the count.

People have not stopped caring about Korean skincare. They have stopped wanting ten steps, and the search data says the same thing: interest in the routine is down 64 percent in a year, while searches for the best Korean skincare routine are up 84 percent.

So this covers the routine as it stands: the order the steps go in, which ones a dermatologist says most people drop anyway, and how the whole thing works when you have four minutes rather than forty.

Key takeaways

• The ten-step routine was never a rulebook. Vogue calls it “a misunderstanding”, and Soko Glam’s own ten-step page says the point is the order, not the number.
• Cleveland Clinic dermatologist Alok Vij does not recommend ten steps to patients, because people reliably do two or three of them.
• The order that matters is thin to thick: cleanse, hydrate, treat, seal, protect. Everything else is optional.
• Only one step is non-negotiable in the morning, and it is the last one.

The Korean skincare routine at a glance

The full sequence, morning and night, with the steps most people skip marked as optional.

• Morning: cleanse, toner, essence (optional), treatment (optional), eye cream (optional), moisturizer, sunscreen
• Evening: oil cleanse, water cleanse, exfoliate (two or three times a week), toner, essence (optional), treatment (optional), mask (occasional), eye cream (optional), moisturizer
• The short version: cleanse, hydrate, moisturize, and sunscreen in the morning
• The rule underneath all of it: thinnest texture first, thickest last

How did we put this together?

We started from the sources that define the routine rather than the ones that repackage it: Soko Glam’s ten-step routine page, and a Cleveland Clinic explainer written with a board-certified dermatologist.

We added Vogue’s guide to the routine, refreshed in February 2026, which quotes five estheticians, founders and industry advisers on how it is actually used now.

Then we checked our own search data. Every trend figure in this post comes from Google Ads search volumes for the US, pulled the day of writing, and we have published the numbers rather than describing them.

Our How We Review page covers the methodology in full.

Why is the Korean skincare routine getting shorter?

Because it was never meant to be ten fixed steps, and the people who built it have been saying so for years.

“The so-called 10-steps were always a misunderstanding,” Vogue wrote in its guide to the routine. Citing K-beauty industry veteran Sarah Chung Park, it added that Korean skincare was never meant to be a rigid formula.

“Depending on your skin concerns on any given day, you can add or take out as many steps as you want,” Chung Park said. “Think of it as the precursor to layered skincare, whether that’s three products or fifteen.”

Even Soko Glam, whose page lists all ten steps, frames them as an order rather than a quota. “It’s not about using more products,” the page says, “it’s about using the right ones in the right order.”

The clinical view is blunter. Dermatologist Alok Vij told Cleveland Clinic that he does not recommend a ten-step routine to his patients at all.

“If you give someone a 10-step routine, they’re probably going to do two or three of those steps reliably,” he said. “And if you start adding a bunch of different products to your routine at once, you won’t know what’s effective or harmful.”

He calls the ten-step concept “brilliant from a marketing standpoint” and prefers three principles instead: be gentle, hydrate at every step, and always finish with sunscreen.

What the search data shows

The head term is down 64 percent year on year.

The ten-step phrasing fell furthest, from 480 searches a month to 40, though at that size the monthly numbers bounce around and the head term is the more reliable signal.

Glass skin held up much better, down 21 percent against the head term’s 64. The look outlasted the method.

One phrasing is going the other way. “Best Korean skincare routine” is up 84 percent, which reads as people asking which routine to follow rather than how to perform a ten-part one.

Why the routine could shrink

Ten steps made sense when each product did one thing. The formulas got better at doing several, and the step count came down with them.

Vogue puts the change down to lifestyle shifts and better formulations. “The technology behind beauty science is so fast-paced in Korea, and companies are constantly improving their formulations to offer advanced solutions that are highly effective,” Sarah Chung Park told the magazine.

That shows up in the products themselves. A hydrating toner that also works as an essence takes out a step, and so does a moisturizer carrying a retinol derivative.

Sunscreen is the clearest case. Dermatologist Alok Vij told Cleveland Clinic that “the FDA is notoriously slow when it comes to approving sunscreens” and that American formulas were still built on filters approved decades ago.

That changed in June 2026, when the FDA cleared bemotrizinol, the first new active ingredient added to the US sunscreen monograph since the late 1990s.

The morning routine, step by step

Seven steps, three of them optional and one that never is.

1. Cleanse. One gentle water-based cleanser is enough. Master esthetician Mandy Epley told Vogue that double cleansing is best reserved for the evening rather than the morning. There is no sunscreen or makeup to break down yet.

2. Toner. Not the stinging astringent the word used to mean. “Korean toners are incredibly hydrating, and their main job is to focus on balancing the skin,” Peach and Lily founder Alicia Yoon told Vogue, which is the test the best Korean toners are judged on.

3. Essence, optional. Yoon draws the line simply: a toner balances, an essence floods the skin with hydration. If your toner is already deeply hydrating, it doubles as one.

4. Treatment, optional. Serums and ampoules go here, lightest texture first. “The general rule of thumb is light to heavy in texture to optimize absorbency,” Yoon said.

5. Eye cream, optional. Lighter than a face cream, so it goes on before one. This is among the first steps to come out on a busy morning.

6. Moisturizer. This seals everything underneath it, so the texture matters more than the ingredient list. Skin that feels tight wants a ceramide cream and skin that shines by noon wants a gel, which is how we sorted the Korean moisturizers.

7. Sunscreen. The one step that is not optional, and the reason the order exists at all. The catch is that a Korean sunscreen bought in the US is often not the formula sold in Seoul, because the filters differ.

The evening routine, step by step

The night version has one job the morning does not: taking the day off properly.

1. Oil cleanse. Oil dissolves oil, which is why this comes first. Sunscreen and long-wear makeup do not come off with a water-based cleanser alone, which is the entire case for a Korean cleansing oil.

2. Water cleanse. The second half of the double cleanse. “A gentle, hydrating water-based cleanser as the second step removes all water-based impurities like dirt, grime, and sweat, without being harsh on the skin,” Yoon told Vogue.

3. Exfoliate, two or three times a week. “Most people only need to exfoliate two or three times a week,” Epley said. Daily is where routines go wrong.

4. Toner. Same as the morning, and the same reasoning. Hydration goes on before anything heavier.

5. Essence, optional. Also the same as the morning. If the toner is hydrating enough, this step is already done.

6. Treatment, optional. Retinol and stronger actives belong here rather than in the morning.

7. Mask, occasional. Vogue’s experts describe sheet and collagen masks as an occasional treatment, not a nightly step.

8. Eye cream, optional. Same place as the morning, before the moisturizer rather than after it.

9. Moisturizer. Heavier than the morning one if your skin wants it. No sunscreen at night, so this is the last step.

What order do Korean skincare products go in?

Thinnest to thickest, which is most of what the step counting stood in for. The American Academy of Dermatology puts the principle plainly: “The sequence in which you apply your skin care products affects how well the products work.”

Water-like products go on first because they absorb fastest, and anything oilier applied before them blocks them. Creams go last because their job is to seal, and you cannot seal through a layer that has already sealed.

Sunscreen sits outside that logic. It works on the surface, so in the morning it goes on last no matter how light it feels.

In practice that means cleanser, then toner, then essence, then any serum or ampoule, then moisturizer, with sunscreen over the top in the morning. At night the same run starts with an oil cleanser and ends without sunscreen.

Cleveland Clinic’s version is even shorter: be gentle, hydrate at every step, finish with sunscreen. Everything else in our routine guides is a variation on those three lines.

Which steps can you actually skip?

Most of them, on most days.

Eye cream, essence, sheet masks and treatments are all optional in the sense that skipping them on a Tuesday costs you nothing. Former Allure editor in chief Michelle Lee described this to Vogue as having a skincare wardrobe rather than a fixed uniform.

“On weekends, maybe you do the mask, the ampoule, the whole routine,” Lee said. “But on busy days, you do the abbreviated version.”

Two of them are conditional rather than optional. Exfoliation belongs two or three times a week rather than daily, and the morning double cleanse is the one Epley says to drop, since there is no sunscreen or makeup on your face yet.

What does not come out is the frame: clean skin, something hydrating, something to seal it, and sunscreen in the morning. Four steps, and three of them take under a minute.

Frequently asked questions

What is the correct order for a Korean skincare routine?

Thinnest texture to thickest. In the morning that is cleanser, toner, essence, treatment, eye cream, moisturizer, then sunscreen last.

At night it is oil cleanser, water cleanser, exfoliant on exfoliating days, toner, essence, treatment, mask, eye cream, then moisturizer last. Sunscreen is the exception to the texture rule and always goes on last in the morning, regardless of how light it feels.

Do you really need ten steps?

No. Cleveland Clinic dermatologist Alok Vij does not recommend a ten-step routine to patients, saying most people reliably complete only two or three steps and that adding several products at once makes it impossible to tell what is working. Vogue describes the ten steps as a misunderstanding of a philosophy that was always meant to be personalised.

What is the difference between a toner and an essence?

A toner balances the skin and preps it for what follows. An essence floods it with hydration and often carries lightweight treatment ingredients. Peach and Lily founder Alicia Yoon told Vogue that a deeply hydrating toner can do both jobs, which is why the essence step is the first one many people drop.

Should you double cleanse every day?

At night, yes, if you wear sunscreen or makeup, because oil-based residue does not come off with a water-based cleanser alone. In the morning, no. Master esthetician Mandy Epley told Vogue that double cleansing is best reserved for the evening.

What is the simplest Korean skincare routine that still works?

Cleanse, apply something hydrating, seal it with a moisturizer, and wear sunscreen in the morning. That is four steps, and it matches the three principles Cleveland Clinic’s dermatologist recommends over step counting: be gentle, hydrate at every step, and always finish with sunscreen.

The bottom line

The ten-step routine was never a checklist. What it teaches is the order, and the order holds at three products or at fifteen.

Start with four steps and add only when your skin asks for something. That is also the safest way to find out what works, since introducing one product at a time is the only way to know which one did anything.

Step-by-step verdicts live in our reviews hub, the cleanser category and the toner and pad category.

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