The History of Anua | Purposeful Skincare for Sensitive Skin

Started in 2019, Anua was not a brand that had to find its feet. It was carefully designed from the outset to be a natural, sustainable skincare brand that sourced pure ingredients for purposeful skincare. It was designed in a ‘brand incubator’ - which helps startups and ideas have access to funds and niche knowledge to delve into the global space. It came out of The Founders, a business that designs brands, headed by Lee Sunhyung and Lee Changjoo. Anua has since become its greatest success, selling over 40 million products globally. 

Rather than having a vision of skincare, Anua was designed from back to front. They thought hard and researched the audience that buys skincare. It had to be trendy, sustainable and have easy to recognize packaging. It had to be for sensitive skin (as these were the most successful brands globally), as well as minimalist and sustainable. 

These were ‘must-have’ pillars of Korean beauty success and The Founders knew that. 

When it came time to design their first skincare line, they also did careful research. Where brands such as Skin1004 and Purito Seoul had found great success in using centella, Anua wanted to replicate that success, but in a new field entirely. This is where they found a vital ingredient for their first skincare line... heartleaf.

If you know anything about Anua, you will have heard of their Heartleaf skincare range. It exploded across the market, especially as its launch coincided with a time where lots of us were suddenly inside and online (Covid lockdowns). Social media spaces exploded generally during this time and this timing launched Anua’s new skincare to the stratosphere. Starting with their Heartleaf Double Cleansing duo, which contained their soon-to-be TikTok famous Pore Control Cleansing Oil.

Similar to Cosrx, Anua didn’t spend their money on traditional marketing and advertisement. Instead, they invested in influencers, online spaces and giving out free samples to get hype out there. With a clean, fresh skincare line that (by formulating for sensitive skin) was safe for most skin types – they spread rapidly. With a heartleaf toner, moisturizer, sunscreen and more; they created a solid base for their skincare identity.  

With any brand using viral marketing, it comes with a fine line to walk of distorting reality versus marketing. When we watch an ad, we are keenly aware that we are being sold something and use our judgement accordingly. However, with beauty products, people rely on reviews a lot. If your review is not an honest portrayal of the product (and instead is a paid promotion), people feel misled and lied to. Anua took this a step further and was caught putting false positive posts and reviews into a variety of spaces and even got banned from several online spaces. (You can’t mention the word Anua in several beauty subreddits, for example).

These are fair criticisms, but it has not hampered Anua’s success even slightly. The thing about the internet, is being infamous still makes you famous. Being mentioned in any capacity still pushes you up in the algorithm and it was ranked the 2nd highest K-Beauty brand in 2025. 

So, let’s talk about what doesn’t get discussed truly about Anua and that’s - are their products really good then? Well, despite the (perhaps unfair) hype around their skincare lines, you don’t stay at the top in South Korea very long if your products don’t work. Simplicity and focusing on soothing heartleaf makes their products work for a large number of individuals, within a variety of routines. Heartleaf is soothing, hydrating and helps re-build a damaged or irritated skin barrier. Concentrating it into a whole skincare line created an easy, nourishing and gentle routine that is safe for almost all users.

The worst criticisms about their products has been that they ‘don’t do much’ which can ring true when other skin types buy sensitive skincare. If you have oily skin or mature skin or really dry skin, chances are a gentle heartleaf toner isn’t going to do much. Anua has a very broad appeal, but all their products aren’t for everyone. They were quick to fix that with their next serum releases, however. 

Although its Heartleaf line is still the core of Anua, they’ve since expanded into a variety of other successful skincare lines. Their Peach + Niacin line provided a rich source of ceramides and vitamins directly into the skin barrier, which helped nourish and improve skin texture. They also created a trio of serums – which targeted dark spots (Niacinamide+TXA), acne (Azelaic acid) and fine lines (PDRN+hyaluronic acid). With this trio, they cemented their spot as a legendary Korean brand. These serums were designed to target common skincare issues, but with a sensitive formula with almost zero irritation.

They’ve since expanded on these base serums; creating cleansers, toners and moisturizers for high-quality products to support these base issues (which have all lead to good reviews). 

Perhaps the best skincare line Anua created (in our personal opinion), is their nourishing rice skincare line. From their fun Rice Enzyme Powder cleanser, to their famous Rice Ceramide Hydrating barrier serum – this skincare line is designed for gentle brightening combined with deep hydration. 

With a rich toner to moisturizing milk, it fits well into any routine and provides good moisture to any skin type (from dry to oily to even acne-prone). It maintains Anua’s promise to clean, pure skincare, but elevates it with a classic Korean skincare ingredient (with so many benefits).

Will the success of Anua continue into the future? We're likely to see it stick around for quite a while longer, at least until skincare values change globally. Giving natural, concentrated ingredients that have benefits you can see will likely still be popular until the near future. We're excited to see the new skincare lines released from Anua, but if it’s like anything they’ve released before, they’ll wait to find a gap in the market and give us what is exactly needed.

After nourishing and sensitive skincare? Check out the legendary Anua range available on Arktastic. From new releases to their classics, we stock it all!

Looking for more K-Beauty reads? Check out the story behind another sensitive K-beauty brand, Dr Althea. Or check out our review of the amazing Anua Niacinamide/TXA serum.

History of Dr Althea 
Anua Niacinamide/TXA Serum Review