Pepplus

Pepplus is a South Korean skincare brand built around peptides, produced by the functional-cosmetics manufacturer Picobio Co., Ltd. The line takes its name from its central ingredient — "Pepplus" reads as peptide-plus — and its best-known products are anti-wrinkle lifting treatments sold as multi-session programs. The brand has shown no visible activity since March 2020, and appears dormant; its parent company's manufacturing business may continue independently.

Picobio is based in Jangsu-gun, in the North Jeolla province of South Korea, and registered the Pepplus trademark in 2017 [4]. Products reached more than twenty countries through local distributors before the brand's public activity stopped.

Pepplus is the in-house peptide line of Picobio Co., Ltd, which also markets the brands Picobio Original, EPICURE and Misozium and runs an OEM manufacturing operation for other companies. Picobio was founded in 2002 under the name U&I Cosmetic and renamed Picobio in 2005 [4]. According to the company, it was established to research, develop and produce functional cosmetics, and it describes itself as a specialist in "differentiated specialty functional products."

The brand's own founding is distinct from its parent's. Picobio's history page records the Pepplus trademark registration in 2017 [4], the same year the company was named a Korean Export Excellence Company. Some third-party distributor listings instead give a founding year of 2002 [13] — but that date belongs to Picobio the parent company, not to the Pepplus line, which did not exist as a trademark until 2017.

The founder of Pepplus is not clearly documented. Ukrainian distributor pages credit the pharmacist-technologist Harry Choi as the creator of the brand's lifting program [13], while Picobio's corporate materials list Min Ju-Hong as chief executive of the parent company [2]. A 2020 notice on the Picobio site was signed "Harry S Choi." The available sources do not resolve cleanly whether Choi founded the brand or developed its core formula within Picobio, so the point is left open.

Peptides are central to the line. Third-party product documentation lists a complex of acetylhexapeptide-8, tripeptide-1 copper and palmitoyl pentapeptide-4, alongside botanical extracts such as green tea, peony root and ginkgo biloba [15]. The range spans cleansers, toners, essences, sheet masks, eye and wrinkle creams, a goat-milk moisturiser and a functional anti-hair-loss shampoo, with a small number of makeup items including a BB foundation.

The brand's signature offering is the Pepplus Special Skin Care Lifting Program, sold in four- and eight-treatment sets. Picobio describes it as an all-in-one product of natural extracts and peptides that tidies the skin, brightens tone and gives a temporary improvement in wrinkles. Distributor listings for the related Super Lifting Program claim visible tightening within thirty minutes of application, with effects lasting up to three days [13]. The lifting products draw on a patented "Super Lifting Polymer" (Korean Patent No. 10-0904552), described as a high-molecular polymer derived from a dissolved porous mineral that forms a gel on the skin [15].

Picobio's research laboratory was certified as a corporate research institute in 2008, and the company holds a series of cosmetic-composition patents covering peptide, plant-extract and mineral formulations. Its manufacturing is certified to the ISO 9001 quality standard and to ISO 22716, the international good-manufacturing-practice standard for cosmetics. The brand site lists no cruelty-free, vegan or organic certifications.

Reporting from 2019 describes Picobio exporting to more than twenty countries, each served by a separate distributor. The company appeared at beauty trade fairs in cities including Bologna, Las Vegas, Hong Kong and Jakarta through 2018 and 2019.

In the United States, a Pepplus lifting product was registered with the Food and Drug Administration as an over-the-counter drug — a classification triggered by its wrinkle-improvement claim rather than a cosmetic listing — with glycerin as the labelled active ingredient [16]. Its recorded US marketing period ran from April 2018 to June 2019 [16].

Pepplus appears dormant. The most recent post on Picobio's website is dated 25 March 2020 and announces the cancellation of the company's 2020 overseas exhibition schedule because of COVID-19 [10]; no product launches, news or blog entries are visible after that date. The site's copyright notice reads 2020, and its US regulatory marketing period had already ended in 2019 [16]. Some retail listings in Ukraine and the United Kingdom still carried Pepplus products after this point, generally marked as out of stock. The parent company, Picobio, may continue to operate on the manufacturing side, but the Pepplus brand itself has not shown public activity since 2020.