2025 Olive Young Must-Buy: Ultimate Guide to Korean Face Serums

Why are face serums a core part of our skincare routines? 
Face serums are powerful functional treatments that address specific skin concerns, often infused with higher concentrations of active ingredients compared to toners and lotions. A serum quickly delivers these ingredients deep into the skin and supplies a rich dose of required nutrients to maximise the effects of your skincare regime. Whether you're looking to improve dullness, repair a damaged barrier or smooth the traces of time, serums are an essential step! 

Korean skincare is well-known for its high-efficacy, low-irritation formulas, and face serums from Korea, as one of the core products of the K-beauty world, have enjoyed worldwide raves and praise, not least because the extensive range of K-beauty serums out there will always present a solution to you, no matter if you're looking for a brightening, repairing, anti-aging or hydrating potion.

Ready to delve into the wonders of Korean face serums? Keep reading for a specially curated list of over 20 K-beauty holy grail picks categorised by skin type!

For Dry Skin

Dry skin often lacks moisture and can feel tight and even flaky, so if this sounds like you, moisturising and hydrating ampoules are naturally what you'd want. Look for humectants and nourishing ingredients like hyaluronic acid, ceramides, glycerin, and NMF (natural moisturising factors) on the packaging. These hydrating factors quickly instil moisture into dehydrated skin and alleviate dryness-induced discomfort, dullness and fine lines.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜ANUA 7 Rice Ceramide Hydrating Barrier Serum

Formulated with natural rice extracts and ceramides, this gentle formulation helps moisturise your natural barrier and brighten dull complexions, while niacinamide, arbutin and zinc offer oil control effects to prevent skin trouble like blackheads and comedones. It also deeply nourishes, soothes and repairs your natural barrier thanks to hydrating ingredients like hyaluronic acid and honey extract.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Wellage Real Hyaluronic Blue Ampoule

One of the best known moisturising serums in Korea! This blue serum leaves skin plump and dewy with a formula of high purity hyaluronic acid and vitamin B5,  soothing irritation caused by dryness. Its lightweight texture, non-sticky and quickly absorbed, is perfect as a quick splash of hydration whenever your skin is feeling thirsty. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜S.Nature Aqua Squalane Serum

Squalane and 8 types of hyaluronic acid quickly hydrate in this moisturising concoction, while betaine retains moisture to keep your skin hydrated throughout the day. The humectants also work in tandem with calming panthenol and allantoin to soothe skin problems caused by daily irritation and external aggressors. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜VT Hydrop Reedle Shot 100

The viral Reedle Shot often found sold out at Olive Young stores in South Korea, with accumulative sales having surpassed 3.3 million units! It promotes your skin’s absorption of active ingredients to improve metabolism and revitalize your skin, with an anti-aging and anti-wrinkle effect. The Reedle Shot comes in varying levels of intensity, from 50 to 1000, and with different functional ingredients, including collagen, cica and hydrating hyaluronic acid, to suit different needs and conditions. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜ANUA PDRN Hyaluronic Acid Capsule 100 Serum

At the heart of this nourishing and plumping serum is the trending ingredient PDRN. The salmon-derived component promotes collagen production and improves skin elasticity, while a whopping 11 layers of hyaluronic acid and hydrolysed collagen help to hydrate and rejuvenate, leaving skin soft, glassy and radiant. 

For Oily Skin

Oily skin types tend to produce more sebum, potentially leading to skin problems like enlarged pores, comedones and acne. While it's nonetheless important for oily skin to stay moisturised, you can look for lightweight hydrating serums equipped with oil control benefits to keep your skin comfortable and refreshed. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜ANUA Azelaic Acid 10 Hyaluron Redness Soothing Serum

Azelaic acid in this lightweight hydrating serum from ANUA helps to moisturise and relieve redness, while its calming cocktail of aloe vera, centella asiatica and other herbal ingredients can help soothe irritation. Suitable for oily, sensitive skin. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜numbuzin No.1 Pantothenic B5 Active Soothing Serum

7-second hydration boost in a bottle! This refreshing serum is formulated with humectants like hyaluronic acid and pantothenic acid in varying molecular weights to quickly replenish moisture. On the other hand, ingredients like the Soothing Booster 12 Complex and niacinamide help to reduce oil secretion and rebalance skin while keeping it moisturised, promising hydration that isn't too much. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜ANUA Heartleaf 80% Moisture Soothing Ampoule

This ANUA serum is enriched with a generous 80% heartleaf extract content, the highest concentration in the brand’s heartleaf line. Delivering skin soothers into your skin in a nourishing yet non-sticky texture, this serum penetrates your skin effortlessly to quickly soothe and restore sensitized skin. Cassia Obtusifolia Seed Extract as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant botanical also helps to relieve redness and improve rough skin texture.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜COSRX The 6 Peptide Skin Booster Serum

A first-step booster serum used right after face wash, this serum comes in a toner-like watery consistency and repairs a variety of skin problems with 6 peptide complex, including improving skin texture, reducing excess sebum and treating pore problems, promising brightening, soothing and firming care in one go.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Aprilskin Carrotene Clarifying Serum 

Infused with rich carrot extracts and niacinamide, this carrotene serum combats acne by inhibiting sebum that can cause blackheads and breakouts. It helps improve acne problems and fade blemishes and scars, while also offering barrier-strengthening and moisture-retaining abilities thanks to beta-carotene. 

For Sensitive Skin

Sensitive skin has a particularly thin stratum corneum, the outermost layer of our epidermis, making prone to redness, itching and other signs of irritation. If your skin experiences frequent itching and flare-ups, we recommend choosing a soothing serum with a natural, low irritation formula. The key to caring for sensitive skin is to calm it while strengthening its natural barrier to build up resistance against irritation.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Torriden Balanceful Cica Serum

A soothing and moisturising serum from the Olive Young bestselling brand Torriden, tailored to the needs of sensitive and combination skin. Boasting a minimalist formula of 5 centella asiatica extracts and hyaluronic acid, it offers light moisturisation, instantly soothes, reduces redness and rebalances the skin's water-oil levels. Suitable for acne-prone skin. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Numbuzin No.7 Mild Green Soothing Serum

This ultimate soothing serum from numbuzin offers light yet lasting moisture in a dewy gel-like texture, with a repairing and soothing blend of botanicals like centella asiatica, mugwort, noni extract, and green tea to effectively strengthen the skin barrier and relieve redness caused by dryness and sensitivity. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜PURITO Wonder Releaf Centella Serum Unscented

A gentle serum designed for sensitive skin with high concentrations of centella asiatica extract to instantly soothe sensitive skin discomfort, while an addition of allantoin and peptides help moisturise and strengthen the skin barrier. Nurtures sensitive skin with a lightly moist and comfortable texture and no added fragrances and alcohol. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜SKIN1004 Madagascar Centella Ampoule

SKIN1004’s flagship ampoule features top-quality centella ingredients from Madagascar and is known as a holy grail for sensitive skin. It rapidly relieves skin sensitivity and restores skin to a healthy, radiant state by strengthening its natural barrier, restoring water-oil levels and combating other skin concerns. 

For Dull Skin

Aging, as well as photodamage and irritation from UV rays, can hinder your skin's metabolism of melanin, leading to a dull complexion and even hyperpigmentation. A brightening serum can boost skin luminosity and restore vitality to your complexion; vitamin C, arbutin and niacinamide are some common components you may find on the ingredients list of a brightening serum, which help to reduce hyperpigmentation and fade dark spots and dullness – perfect for those concerned about blemishes and an uneven skin tone. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Abib Glutathiosome Dark Spot Serum Vita Drop

Brightening with the three curated core ingredients of 98% pure glutathione, vitamin C and niacinamide, this serum is imbued with orange glutathione capsules to facilitate the delivery of active ingredients deep into the skin. It reduces blemishes and improves hyperpigmentation both on the surface of the skin and deep within.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Numbuzin No.5+ Vitamin Concentrated Serum

This Numbuzin serum features a highly antioxidant formula of 98% pure glutathione, vitamin C and other ingredients, targeting skin problems such as spots, blemishes and uneven skin tone. Use for 2 weeks to see visible improvements in your skin texture and luminosity!

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Sungboon Editor Meoru Podo Vita C Dark Spot Ampoule

Rich in antioxidising and brightening ingredients, mulberry grapes boast excellent antioxidant ingredients among other grape varieties. This Sungboon Editor serum utilises patented grape vitamin C ingredients, which work in tandem with pure vitamin C and other derivatives to inhibit melanin production, improve hyperpigmentation and brighten your overall complexion. It also nourishes and locks moisture in thanks to a hydrating formula of 10 types of hyaluronic acids, grapeseed oil capsules, and resveratrol, leaving skin hydrated and bouncy. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜ANUA Niacinamide 10% + TXA 4% Serum

This serum fuses the brightening active ingredients niacinamide and tranexamic acid to help reduce the appearance of dark spots, reduce pigmentation and even out skin tone. Formulated with gentle ingredients, the lightweight yet hydrating texture is easily absorbed by the skin and, in addition to brightening, moisturises and strengthens the skin barrier. 

For Skin with Large Pores

Sebum and dirt buildup within pores can stretch and enlarge the insides of the follicle, resulting in widened pores and a rougher skin appearance. Exfoliating and removing impurities and old skin cells help to regulate the skin’s metabolism and water-oil balance, contributing to smoother skin. Serums for pore concerns often achieve this through acid-based chemical exfoliators such as alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs) and beta-hydroxy acid (BHAs) like salicylic acids, which can gently melt away dead skin cells on the skin’s surface. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Sungboon Editor Green Tomato Pore Lifting Ampoule

A bestselling anti-aging and pore minimising serum that has topped Olive Young rankings, the centrepiece of its formula being the excellent antioxidant “Tomatidine”, extracted from green tomatoes. Helps to tighten pores, slow down skin aging and lift sagging skin for improved elasticity and texture. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜BIODANCE Pore Tightening Collagen Ampoule

The serum version of the viral overnight mask selling more than 10 million pieces in Korea! Concocted with 74% ultra-low molecular collagen for easy absorption by the skin, this pink Biodance serum immediately increases your skin's collagen content by 168% after use. It also provides an excellent lifting effect to improve saggy pores and leaves skin firmer and smoother.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜numbuzin No.3 Skin Softening Serum

Formulated with two luxury department store-grade ingredients – 42% bifida ferment lysate and 21% galactomyces ferment filtrate, the numbuzin No.3 serum penetrates deeply to brighten dull, rough skin and smooth bumpy textures, all while keeping potential irritation from fermented ingredients to a minimum.

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Medicube Zero Pore Serum 2.0

An upgraded version of the Medicube Pore Serum with pore-tightening botanicals and sebum control effects, effectively clearing blackheads and pore waste and minimising pores. On the other hand, it’s also imbued with moisturising ingredients to restore a healthy water-oil balance. 

For Mature Skin

As the skin ages, its metabolic capacity slows down and its ability to retain moisture weakens. If concerns like dryness, fine lines and sagging skin are troubling you, or if you'd like to freeze time for your skin, we recommend protecting your skin with anti-aging serums, which are often loaded with antioxidants like vitamin C, vitamin E and Polyphenol to protect the skin against free radicals and slow down skin aging. Collagen and hydrating factors are also a common addition to anti-aging formulas, as they can improve skin elasticity and moisture to reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Numbuzin No.9 NAD Bio Lifting-sil Essence

Targeting aging, loose and saggy skin, this essence slows down skin aging with NAD+, a powerful anti-aging ingredient and an important coenzyme in human cells that can promote metabolism and cell regeneration. It works alongside niacinamide (vitamin B3), a gentle skincare ingredient that can impede melanin production, fade spots and acne marks, and regulate the skin's water-oil balance to minimise enlarged pores. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Medicube PDRN Pink One-Day Serum Set 

Each individually packaged tube in this PDRN serum set contains 99% high-purity PDRN brightening essence, promising utmost freshness and minimal contact with air. The low molecular PDRN absorbs rapidly and penetrates deep within for powerful brightening treatment, effectively reducing spots, pigmentation and melanin and improving dullness, all while restoring bounce and firmness to your skin. 

2025 Olive Young Must-Buy Serum Pick｜Medicube PDRN Pink Exosome Shot Serum

What if PDRN teamed up with exosomes and microneedling? A trending ingredient dream team in a bottle, this serum delves deep into your skin with a microneedle formula that is 25 times smaller than pores to reduce blemishes, minimise pores and firming sagging skin. Also contains 8 kinds of hyaluronic acids, ultra-low molecular collagen and 3 kinds of peptides to help replenish moisture and elasticity from the inside to the outside, promoting collagen production for plump and radiant skin.