My mother used to make her own skincare from rice. not quite understanding why, just that her skin looked fresh, clean. Decades later, I’ve found three serums that finally explain it.

There’s a skincare memory I keep coming back to.

My mother using rice — actual rice, from the kitchen — as part of her beauty routine. She would wash her face with the rice water collected every evening before cooking our meals. I was a child and I didn’t understand it then. I just noticed that her skin had a quality I couldn’t name. A luminosity. A calmness.

I’ve been thinking about that memory a lot recently, because I’ve been using the Beauty of Joseon serum range for the past few months and there’s something in them that feels like a homecoming. An acknowledgment that the ingredient my mother trusted in her kitchen was not a home remedy but a centuries- old truth that Korean skincare has been quietly building on all along.

Science is now confirming what my mother knew

For generations across East and Southeast Asia, rice water has been used as a skin tonic. Women rinsed their faces with it, soaked cotton pads in it, used it as the basis for homemade skincare. The wisdom was handed down rather than written down.

What we know now — what the formulations in Beauty of Joseon make visible — is that rice bran water is rich in amino acids, minerals and antioxidants that hydrate, soothe and brighten skin. The Glow Deep Serum, which I’ll come to shortly, is 68% rice bran water. Not a trace ingredient. The foundation of the entire formula.

Why I started looking at Korean skincare

Twenty-five years ago, the skincare I admired — the essences and serums associated with the luminous, hydrated skin I wanted — came from Japanese luxury brands. Kanebo was the benchmark. The formulations were extraordinary. The price point, for someone with a young family and a kitchen table business, was not accessible.

So I improvised with what I had. Traditional approaches. Home remedies. Instinctively, SPF on my face to avoid freckles in the sun, which I’m grateful for now.

Korean skincare has changed everything about this. In the last few years it has arrived properly on the UK market — not just in specialist shops but on high streets, in pharmacies, on mainstream beauty sites — bringing with it sophisticated, well-researched formulations at prices that feel almost suspiciously reasonable given what they contain.

Beauty of Joseon is where I landed. And I want to tell you honestly what I’ve found.

The three serums I rotate — and why I rotate them

I don’t use all three every day. I rotate them depending on what my skin seems to need, which changes with the weather, with how much sleep I’ve had, with how demanding the week has been. The rotation is the point — each serum does something slightly different, and together they cover most of what my skin in its fifties actually requires.

Glow Deep Serum — Rice + Alpha Arbutin

This is the one that connects most directly to my mother’s rice water rituals — and the one that has surprised me most.

It’s formulated with 68% rice bran water and 2% alpha-arbutin, targeting pigmentation and uneven skin tone. Alpha arbutin works by inhibiting melanin production — which is what causes dark spots and uneven tone to develop and deepen.

I had been using The Ordinary’s version of the serum and it was great, but I was curious about the Korean version of the ingredient, coupled with rice water.

I want to be honest: I haven’t taken before and after photos. What I can tell you is that there was a sunspot on my nose that I’d had for years and had accepted, having tried various age spot serums including expensive ones from premium beauty brands.

Now, it seems to have faded significantly. I still have some stubborn ones on my forehead and a couple of age spots on the top of my cheeks that I’m working on — but the overall tone of my skin looks more even than it did six months ago.

Alpha arbutin and rice extracts are genuinely quite gentle, making this serum safe for sensitive skin types. This matters to me because some brightening ingredients — vitamin C at high percentages, for example — can be irritating on skin that’s already dealing with the sensitivity that comes with hormonal change.

I should confess something here.

I had been using this serum in the mornings — happily, without question — for several months. It was only when I sat down to write this post and started researching the ingredients properly that I discovered alpha arbutin is best used in the evening, as it can be vulnerable to light and heat. (I don’t think this was mentioned in The Ordinary’s version so I assumed it would be ok with this one.

The reason I hadn’t noticed? The instructions on the packaging are in a font size that, post-cataract surgery, I simply cannot read without my reading glasses. Before my operation, being short-sighted meant I could read tiny text with no difficulty at all — I was practically built for small print. Now I can see across a room perfectly, but the guidance on a skincare bottle requires a separate expedition to locate my glasses for very small print – under 8pt to be precise.

The reading glasses are now living in my skincare drawer, since most product information seems to be in a font that’s too small to read without glasses now.

There’s something rather ironic about this — and perhaps something beauty brands should think about. Women over fifty are your fastest-growing skincare audience. We are also, many of us, navigating vision changes that make the small print on packaging genuinely inaccessible. Larger text on labels would not go amiss.

In any case: if you’re starting with the Glow Deep Serum, go straight to evenings. My research did the work so yours doesn’t have to.

If you’d like to read the full story of my cataract surgery and what it taught me about skincare — including the waterless cleansing routine I now use every day — that post is here

The texture of this serum, I should add, is silky in a way that feels genuinely different from most serums I’ve tried. It sinks in without leaving any tackiness. My skin feels soft rather than tacky— which is exactly the right sensation for skin that’s been working hard all day.

Calming Serum — Green Tea + Panthenol

This is my rescue serum.

I live in Britain. My skin knows it. The combination of central heating, cold wind, and the particular damp grey quality of an English winter does something to mature skin. For many years, I seemed to have skin that would bounce back from harsh cleansing or topical scrubs, in fact I loved the clean feeling it gave me, but now . Redness. Tightness. A general sense of protest.

The Calming Serum is what I reach for when that happens. Green tea is a well-established anti-inflammatory in skincare — it calms redness and protects against environmental stress. Panthenol (provitamin B5) supports the skin barrier and helps it hold onto moisture.

Together they work quickly. Not dramatically — this isn’t the serum version of a cold compress — but within the time it takes to finish getting ready, the redness has settled and my skin feels like itself again.

These are not aggressive serums. They’re not going to produce dramatic results in a week. If you’re looking for the kind of transformation that changes your face in a fortnight, these aren’t that. What they do is work steadily, gently, and consistently — which is, I’ve come to believe, exactly how skin in its fifties wants to be treated.

Not pushed. Nourished.

A note on price and where to find them

This is where Korean skincare genuinely changes the conversation. These serums are available in the UK through Lookfantastic, Cult Beauty and Amazon, typically in the £10–£18 range each. For the quality of formulation — the ingredient percentages, the research behind them, the results I’ve experienced — that feels almost unreasonably good value.

The full circle

I started this post thinking about my mother and her rice water rituals. I’m ending it thinking about my daughters — one of whom has already borrowed my Calming Serum and declared it “actually good, Mum, genuinely.”

There’s something in that continuity that I find quietly moving. The wisdom my mother handed down without explaining it, now available in beautifully packaged bottles on a UK high street, now being passed on to the next generation who will discover their own relationship with these ingredients.

Rice water. Centuries of it. Finally in a serum I can afford and my daughter will steal.

Have you tried Beauty of Joseon — or any Korean skincare that’s become a non-negotiable for you? And do you have memories of traditional skincare ingredients from your own family? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

And if any of the vision or packaging observations resonated — or if you’ve had your own post-surgery skincare discoveries — tell me that too. These are exactly the conversations I started this blog to have.