Review and comparison of fermented rice-based eye creams: Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream and Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream

I've been using fermented skincare for a long while now; not only Galacto- and Saccharomyces-based products with fermented rice, but also products with all kinds of plant extracts that'd been fermented with various microorganisms. Some of them were more effective than the others. Lately I've been using several eye creams with fermented ingredients, including these two eye creams that I'd like to talk about today - Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream and Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream. As always, this post is not sponsored in any way, shape or form; I purchased all products myself and all opinions are my own, YMMV.

Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream and Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream

Even though usually I prefer to ignore the packaging, I feel like I should post this picture of the creams to make it easier for you to figure out which one of the Swanicoco's eye products I'm talking about. Swanicoco has several skincare lines with similar names, which I find rather confusing, and I might not be alone. I'll be reviewing Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream, not the Fermentation Repair eye serum (which I tried to purchase for a few months, quite unsuccessfully), or the Fermentation Peptin eye repair cream (it was repackaged as Biologia Fermentation Peptin eye care cream); Biologia Fermentation Care eye cream seems to be a repackaged version of Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream with a couple extra ingredients added.  Quite a few different eye creams coming from a small indie brand! I've a feeling Swanicoco is currently repackaging and/or reformulating some of their products, including Fermentation line; unfortunately, there is no info concerning eye creams on global website, and  Chrome translate is having difficulties with Korean website, since most product descriptions are part of pictures. You can purchase Swanicoco cream on the company's website, keep in mind that the store section is in Korean only; Amazon, YesStyle and Koreadepart don't carry it anymore, but you can still find it on eBay for under $40 for 30ml. Unlike Swanicoco, Purebess cream is very easy to find on eBay, Jolse, and some other sellers; Amazon has it for under $10 with Prime shipping for 50ml.

Let's move on to ingredients. Swanicoco claims on it's English-language website that "Swanicoco does not use ingredients that are harmful to the skin such as dyes, artificial fragrances, chemical preservatives, steroids, alcohol, mineral oil, parabens, and benzophenones. Instead, we try our best to use only natural and fermented extracts, and have engaged in ceaseless research to make sure that natural components do not conflict one another when combined" (here). Swanicoco seems to be investing considerable resources into product developing technology, they got at least one patent to their name, and several of their products had been approved by Korean FDA, which is kind of a big deal in Korea. Generally it means that cosmetic product in question is really doing what its marketing claims said it will, and the KFDA has completed the functional examination report to prove that it actually works, it's not a hoax and the PR hype is real. Purebess website (here) is in Korean only, and it's not Google translate-friendly one, so I'm not sure about their approach to ingredients.

There is no ingredient list in English on  Swanicoco eye cream's packaging; actually, there are just a few sentences in English on the whole box, and they seem to be generic PR spiel that was Google-translated without much editing. CosDNA has the full ingredient list here, and it's a beauty;  CosDNA considers Stearic acid and chamomile (both comedogenic 2 out of 10) the worst offenders in this product. It has several fermented ingredients: Aspergillus Rice Ferment Filtrate, Saccharomyces Mistletoe Ferment Extract, Saccharomyces Imperata Cylindrica Root Ferment Extract, Lactobacillus Soybean Ferment Extract, Bacillus Cordyceps Sinensis, Ganoderma Lucidum, Inonotus Obliquus, Lentinus Edodes, Phellinus Linteus, Schizophyllum Commune and Tricholoma Matsutake Extract Ferment Filtrate, and Saccharomyces Cornus Officinalis Fruit, Angelica Acutiloba Root, Deer Antler and Thyme Ferment Filtrate. Unfortunately, Swanicoco does not specify the exact percentage of each fermented ingredient, but it's worth mentioning that they combined four different microrganisms: Aspergillus, Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus and Bacillus. The cream  also contains EGF, niacinamide, peptides, adenosine and ceramide 1, as well as camellia oil and some non-fermented plant extracts, most notably licorice, wild ginseng,  rosemary and chamomile.  

Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream PR info

Biologia Fermentation Care eye cream PR info

In case you can't find the original version of  Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream and decide to purchase the renewed version of it, Biologia Fermentation Care eye cream, there are some PR pictures that reflect the changes - it seems that Swanicoco added propolis extract, another ceramide, astaxanthin, glutathione and beta-glucan to the non-fermented part of ingredients. CosDNA does not have the renewed version listed yet. 

 

Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream compared to older version of SKII eye cream

Unlike Swanicoco eye cream, Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream has only one fermented ingredient - Galactomyces ferment filtrate; while both Swanicoco and Purebess creams contain rice ferment filtrate as their main ingredient, it's been fermented by different microorganisms - Aspergullus and Galactomyces, respectively. I'm not going to discuss this fact in all details here; even though there is not much research regarding the relative efficiency of cutaneous applications of various fermented rice products, it'll take too long to properly review and consolidate various research articles I've been reading on PubMed and some other sources, and I don't want to skim over them briefly. It's a subject that I find very interesting; I'd rather talk about it in more detail some other time.

CosDNA has the full ingredients list for Purebess cream here; it has dimethicone, PEGs and cetearyl alcohol, but it's free of mineral oil, parabens and fragrance. It appears that it's been marketed as a cheaper alternative for SK-II eye cream with cleaner ingredients. It's worth mentioning that Procter & Gamble don't specify the exact percentage of Galactomyces ferment filtrate in SKII eye cream (official website here, and CosDNA for newest version of SKII here); Purebess lists it at 80%, so the cheaper version of Galactomyses-based eye cream might actually have more of its active ingredient. Other notable ingredients in Purebess cream are extracts of willow bark, giant horsetail, japanese pepper, persimmon and plantain.

Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream PR info

For the sake of being fair I'm going to mention that Purebess eye cream was certified by Korean FDA; if Swanicoco website talks about the KFDA certification  for Fermentation Care eye cream anywhere, it's in Korean, so I can't be sure of it until either I'll manage to translate it somehow or Swanicoco updates its website.

Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream and Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream

Let's move on to application and results; I'm going to try side-by-side comparison so it'll be easier for you to notice the differences. Both eye creams don't smell like much, which is a bonus for me; I'm allergic to added perfume, and I'm glad that neither cream has any. Swanicoco is somewhat softer and more jell-o-like in texture and almost semi-translucent compared to solid white color of Purebess, which is lighter and creamier in texture.

Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream and Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream

Purebess cream starts to soak into my skin the moment its applied; Swanicoco cream definitely takes its time. 

Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream and Purebess Galactomyces 80 eye cream

I don't like rubbing my eye creams in; my eye area is too sensitive for that. I always preferred eye creams that absorb fast and without any extra efforts. In that regard, Swanicoco falls short - it takes a long time to absorb, much longer than Purebess and most other fermented eye creams that I've tried so far, even though it's not the heaviest eye cream I've ever used. In the picture above, you can see them side-by-side after being spread on for roughly the same time and left for a minute to absorb. Purebess is fully absorbed, even though there was more of it initially, and there is still some product left on top of my skin on Swanicoco side. I used less of it when I was applying it to my eyes, but the results were about the same. Usually I apply eye cream or eye serum as a first step of my skincare routine; I was advised that doing so might prevent adverse reactions to active ingredients in serums, ampoules and other products, since the skin in my eye area is very sensitive and often gets red and swollen if I'll put my regular skincare too close to my eye area by accident. I prefer eye creams and serums that absorb fast and leave little or no residue on my skin so I can start layering the rest of my skincare products without waiting too long.

Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream - company's PR

Last but not least, let's talk about the results. I received a few foil samplers of Swanicoco Fermentation Repair eye serum as a gift with my orders from Korean eBay sellers; by the time I got to try it it was sold out and the seller was not going to restock. I loved the serum; I used it for less than a couple weeks and I had visible results after such short time. Unfortunately, I was not able to find it anywhere; it might be even discontinued now. Eventually I gave up and bought the Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream instead of the serum. I had great expectations for this eye cream, but I was sorely disappointed. While the serum was light and absorbed very fast, the cream turned out to be rather heavy. I started using it in am routine only; it absorbed at such slow rate that I had difficulties layering other products on top of it. Despite its heaviness, the cream wasn't moisturizing enough for me; I felt that my eye area was drying out by mid-day, and small under-eye wrinkes seemed to be more noticeable than usual. Worst of all, I've noticed milia appearing in less than a week after I started using the cream. Perhaps if I were using both serum and cream together, my results would've been better, but alone this eye cream did not work out for my skin despite its great ingredients list.

I had no interest in trying SKII eye cream since their first essence was such a huge disappointment for me, so I was not looking for a cheaper dupe of it; I got my first tube of Purebess eye cream by accident from Memebox as a part of one of their Beauty Boxes, and I'm so glad I did. It's light, but it's very moisturizing; it never gave me any milia, and I never had any adverse reactions to it. I used it alone in summer and layered up as an eye serum under itself or other, heavier eye cream in winter; sometimes I used it as face moisturizer under sunscreen, and it worked just fine. It was able to compete with Su:m 37 and Sulwhasoo eye creams, and it even outperformed some of them. I repurchased it once already. Overall, it's a nice reliable basic eye moisturizer than works even when my skin's in bad shape after a flare-ups or seasonal allergies, and I'm going to keep repurchasing it as long as it's not discontinued. 

TL;DR

Swanicoco Fermentation Care eye cream has beautiful clean ingredients list, but it did not work that well for my skin, and I had to stop using it after a week. Purebess eye cream, oldie but goodie, outperformed yet another more expensive competitor; I hope it will not get discontinued anytime soon.