Is Korean skincare safe during pregnancy?
Mostly, and the things worth avoiding are specific enough to name. There is nothing about a product being Korean that makes it riskier or safer in pregnancy. What matters is what is in the bottle, and the list of ingredients to look for is short.
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. What I can do, which most brands cannot, is tell you what is in the products I sell and where it sits on the panel, so you can take a real list to the person who is actually qualified to advise you.
So here is mine, including the part that costs me a sale and the part I cannot answer.
The one thing I would take out of my own lineup
I sell twenty individual products. One of them contains a retinoid. It is the Aseriel Derma Luxe Cream, the moisturizer in the Lift and Renewal Kit, and the ingredient is hydroxypinacolone retinoate at position 43 of 91.
That product page already carried a pregnancy note before I wrote this post. I am repeating it here because a note on one product page is easy to miss and a kit is bought as one thing.
Nothing else I sell contains a retinoid in any form. No retinol, no retinal, no retinyl esters, no tretinoin, no adapalene. I went through the ingredient statements rather than relying on memory, and at the end of this post I tell you exactly how good that paperwork is, product by product, because it is not uniform.
What the research actually says about topical retinoids
This is where the internet and the evidence have drifted apart, and both halves are worth knowing.
The standing advice is to avoid them. MotherToBaby, the information service run by the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists, puts it carefully in its topical acne fact sheet: it is "generally recommended to avoid" topical retinoid medications such as tretinoin and adapalene during pregnancy, because "retinoids, when taken by mouth, are known to cause birth defects." Its tretinoin sheet adds the part people skip, which is that "in general, skin serves as a good barrier," and "only a small amount of the tretinoin is likely to be absorbed with topical (skin) exposure when used as directed."
Then in December 2025 a Nordic cohort study appeared in the British Journal of Dermatology covering 2,172 pregnancies with first-trimester topical retinoid exposure. Major congenital malformations occurred in 3.3 percent of exposed infants, against 3.0 percent of unexposed and 2.6 percent of infants exposed to azelaic acid or clindamycin instead. Compared with the unexposed group the adjusted risk ratio was 1.1, with a confidence interval of 0.87 to 1.38. The authors' conclusion: "We did not observe an increased risk of MCM associated with use of topical retinoids."
In the same paper, the authors still write that "a safety precaution for use in pregnancy is still justified," and their own plain-language summary says that "given the limitations of our data, topical retinoids should still be avoided in women who are or plan to become pregnant."
Both are true at once, and the reason matters more than picking a side. The study included only live and stillborn infants, which the authors say "could be hampered by selection bias." The confidence interval reaches 1.38, wide enough to contain a modest increase in risk. So what the data supports, in the authors' own framing, is reassurance if you have already used a retinoid without knowing you were pregnant, and not a green light to carry on using one.
That is more useful than either "retinoids cause birth defects" or "actually they are fine."
The thing almost nobody will tell you about the pregnancy-safe alternative
Bakuchiol is sold everywhere as the pregnancy-safe retinol alternative. I sell two products containing it, so read the next paragraph knowing that.
A review of topical bakuchiol in the Journal of Integrative Dermatology states, in its discussion, that "no clinical studies have been performed on individuals who were pregnant or nursing" and that "There was no information available on teratogenicity or carcinogenicity." The same passage says this "warrants caution for use in individuals who are pregnant, nursing, or trying to conceive."
The conclusion and the abstract then land somewhere softer. Both say that "while concrete clinical evidence is insufficient to make definitive claims on pregnancy safety," bakuchiol "can be considered a safer option for those who are pregnant, nursing and trying to conceive."
Read those together. The caution is in the discussion. The reassurance, hedged but reassuring, is in the abstract, which is where most people stop reading.
The safety position rests on mechanism rather than on anyone having studied it in pregnancy. Specifically, in one gene expression study, bakuchiol did not upregulate the retinoic acid receptor genes that retinol upregulated, which the review reads as bakuchiol being "mechanistically not expected to play a role in embryogenesis like retinol does." That is a reasonable inference. It is not evidence of safety in pregnancy, and the review says so about itself.
One of the two bakuchiol products is the VARDA rice-derived PDRN Skin Booster Cica Serum, where bakuchiol sits at position 14 of 36. The second is a product I am not going to name here, for a reason I explain in the section on what I cannot tell you.
The things the internet tells you to avoid that the guidance does not
This surprised me, and it is the most practical part of this post.
MotherToBaby's topical acne fact sheet, updated February 2026, relays the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' position that over-the-counter topical products containing benzoyl peroxide, azelaic acid, salicylic acid or glycolic acid may be used "during pregnancy, if needed." The same sheet tells you to check the label, because many products carry other actives alongside those.
That cuts against a great deal of what gets written about acids in pregnancy. It does not mean any particular acid product is right for you. Concentration matters, how much skin you cover matters, and "if needed" is doing real work in that sentence. The fact sheet also notes that "more of the medication may be absorbed if the skin is broken or irritated," which is exactly the state skin is often in when someone reaches for an acid. But if you have been avoiding a gentle acid toner because of something you read on a blog, that is worth raising with your provider rather than deciding alone.
Four products of mine carry leave-on acids, and here they are rather than in a vague sentence.
The Healara Core Enhance Brightening Toner is the heaviest: gluconolactone at 16, capryloyl salicylic acid at 19, lactic acid at 49, salicylic acid at 51, mandelic at 55 and glycolic at 56, on a 62-ingredient panel. It also carries willow bark water at 32, which is a natural salicylate source.
The Healara Core Lift Firming Ampoule, the firming step in the Restore and Nourish Kit, carries gluconolactone at 44 and capryloyl salicylic acid at 45 on an 88-ingredient panel.
The Healara Radiance Shot Moisture Toner carries willow bark extract at 22, gluconolactone at 23 and mandelic acid at 24.
The Korisol Niacin Sun Glitter Serum carries salicylic acid at 19 of 50, with mandelic at 30, gluconic at 32 and lactobionic at 34 below it.
Those four are the ones to show your doctor if you want to keep using them.
Where my own kits actually land
I can tell you what is in each kit. That is not the same as telling you which is suitable for you, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
The Lift and Renewal Kit is the one to ask about. All five pieces carry something on the list in this post. It holds the only retinoid I sell, one of the two bakuchiols, the heaviest acid toner, a cleanser containing lemon and bergamot essential oils, and a sheet mask whose only entry on this list is five synthesised peptides at positions 25 through 29 of 29, which falls in the no-research-either-way category at the end of this post.
On that cleanser: it declares limonene at 30 of 31, and I have an open question with the supplier about the bergapten grade of the bergamot oil. Bergapten is the furocoumarin that makes some citrus oils photosensitising, which matters more than usual in a pregnancy where you may already be watching for dark patches. Until that is answered I would not put it on skin that is already reacting.
The Glass Skin Kit is not as clear as I would have guessed before checking. Its toner carries tranexamic acid at 8, willow bark at 22, gluconolactone at 23, mandelic acid at 24 and sage essential oil at 28. Its cleanser carries a fragrance at 10, vitamin C at 15, and three exfoliating acids: mandelic at 16, gluconic at 17 and lactobionic at 22, of 27. I nearly wrote that this kit was mostly fine. It is not, and the only reason I know that is that I went through the panels for this post.
The Vegan Glass Skin Kit shares that same toner, so the toner paragraph above applies to it too. Its cleanser is the Sograin So Oat Creamy Cleanser, which is one of the two products where my paperwork is not good enough to answer this question, and that is in the last section.
The Restore and Nourish Kit has no retinoid, no bakuchiol and no exfoliating acid in its cleanser or toner. Its ampoule and cream carry peptides and tranexamic acid, and the ampoule is the one with the two leave-on acids above. The ampoule also contains white lupin at position 39, a legume that is a declared allergen in the EU and the UK and that some people with peanut allergy cross-react to, alongside two soy ferments at 33 and 35 and a rye ferment at 34. That is an allergen question rather than a pregnancy one, and it is on the kit page, but it belongs in any list of what is actually in the bottle.
The Barrier Repair Kit contains no retinoid, no bakuchiol, no salicylate and no exfoliating acid, which are the four things on the list in this post. It also carries no fragrance, no essential oil and no tranexamic acid, which matter for reactive skin rather than for pregnancy specifically, and I am separating those two sentences on purpose, because sensitisation and teratogenicity are not the same subject and a lot of pregnancy skincare writing runs them together.
Citric acid appears at the end of two of its four distinct panels, at 28 of 29 in the cleanser and 38 of 39 in the ampoule. The kit's fifth piece is travel sizes of formulas already in it, which is why there are four panels and five pieces. Citric acid in that position is almost always a pH adjuster rather than an exfoliant, and I want to be clear that I am inferring that from where it sits, which is the same guess I warn about two sections down.
Two honest notes on that kit. The one built out of a single brand for reasons that had nothing to do with pregnancy is the one that came out cleanest, which is luck and not design. And both of those kits are mine and both cost $179, so a verdict from me that one is clean and the other needs a conversation is not a disinterested verdict. That is exactly why I have given you the panels instead of the conclusion.
What I cannot tell you
Positions on an ingredient list are an ordering, not a dose. For the retinoid, the bakuchiol and every acid above, I do not have a concentration, because those panels do not print one. A couple of my panels do print a figure for one or two ingredients, and none of them do it for these. Anyone telling you a product is fine in pregnancy because an ingredient sits low on the list is guessing, and so would I be.
There is a whole category with no pregnancy research at all. Synthesised peptides. Sodium DNA. Ferment filtrates. Several of my products contain these. I am not going to tell you they are risky, because I do not know that, and I am not going to tell you they are fine, because nobody has looked.
And my lists come from three different places, which I would rather name than let you assume.
Most rest on an official manufacturer ingredient statement: the five Healara products, the four Dr.RELIEF DAC2 products, the Sograin So Oat Watery Cream. Some rest on the printed carton, read against the physical box: the Aseriel cream, the VARDA serum, the Yeonhwa cleanser, the mugwort mask. Two rest on the list the brand supplied: the Vegetology ampoule and the Korisol cleanser. All three are the ingredient list of record for those products, and they are what I am reading when I answer you.
Then there are two where I will not quote a single position, here or anywhere, until it is fixed.
One is a mist I sell as an add-on, and it is the second of the two bakuchiol products. My list for it is a transcription from the label of a production run the supplier has since told me was superseded, with an ingredient added. I have asked for the current statement. Until it arrives I am not naming the product or quoting a number from it, because doing that would mean publishing a list I already know is out of date.
The other is the Sograin So Oat Creamy Cleanser, the cleanser in the Vegan Glass Skin Kit. It rests on my own transcription of a Korean panel rather than a manufacturer statement, and that is not a standard I am willing to answer a pregnancy question against.
Both are being fixed. Neither is a reason to panic about a product. It is a reason not to trust my list on those two yet, and you should know which two.
What I would actually do
Take the specific list, not a vibe, to your obstetrician or midwife or dermatologist. "Is Korean skincare okay" is not an answerable question. "Is hydroxypinacolone retinoate at an unknown concentration okay" is.
If you own something of mine and you are not sure, email me with what you have and I will tell you exactly what is on the panel, including if the answer is that I am still waiting on the supplier. I will not tell you whether to use it, because that is not mine to say.
On the one thing everyone agrees about. The American Academy of Dermatology's guidance on melasma, the dark patches that pregnancy often brings, is that "sunlight causes the skin to make more pigment, which can darken existing melasma," and it recommends a broad-spectrum sunscreen of SPF 30 or higher, reapplied through the day, plus "wearing a wide-brimmed hat while outdoors, seeking shade." The same page notes that "when you deliver your baby or stop taking the medication, melasma can fade," which is worth hearing if you are currently worried about it. Sunscreen is its own step and sits outside my kits by design, since SPF is regulated as an over-the-counter drug in the United States and I would rather curate what I can stand behind than ship a filter I cannot source here.
This post describes what is in the products ViaJiin sells, read from the manufacturer ingredient statements, brand-supplied lists and printed cartons on file, at the level of confidence set out above. It is not medical advice and it is not a substitute for talking to your own clinician.
Sources
- MotherToBaby, Organization of Teratology Information Specialists. Topical Acne Treatments. Fact sheet dated February 1, 2026. https://mothertobaby.org/fact-sheets/topical-acne-treatments-pregnancy/
- MotherToBaby, Organization of Teratology Information Specialists. Tretinoin (Retin-A). Fact sheet dated July 1, 2024. https://mothertobaby.org/fact-sheets/tretinoin-retin-a-pregnancy/
- Refsum E, Furu K, Cesta CE, Nørgaard M, Wittström F, Zoega H, Ulrichsen SP, Cohen JM. Topical retinoid use in women of reproductive age and risk of major congenital malformations in exposed pregnancies: a Nordic cohort study. British Journal of Dermatology. 2026;194(4):640-647, published online 9 December 2025. doi:10.1093/bjd/ljaf500
- Park SJ. A comprehensive review of topical bakuchiol for the treatment of photoaging. Journal of Integrative Dermatology. doi:10.64550/joid.9jag0x17. Single-author review. The publisher's page gives no volume or page numbers and shows inconsistent dates, which is worth knowing given it is the source carrying the reassuring conclusion.
- American Academy of Dermatology. Melasma: Diagnosis and treatment. https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/melasma-treatment
