Round Lab

Round Lab is a South Korean skincare brand and the flagship label of Seorin Company, which was founded in 2017 [10]. Its products are built around natural ingredients sourced from specific, sparsely populated regions of the Korean Peninsula, and the brand positions its range as gentle, clean, and suited to sensitive skin. Round Lab is best known internationally for its 1025 Dokdo Toner and its birch-sap sunscreen, both of which became widely discussed within online K-beauty communities.

The brand remains active. Its parent, Seorin Company, is reported to have a presence in more than 50 countries, and Round Lab's products have since expanded into US mass retail, becoming available at Target [8]. The company continues to operate a direct e-commerce store and to add new collections.

Round Lab draws its identity from the landscape of the Korean Peninsula, and much of its storytelling centres on where its ingredients come from rather than on the people who founded it. The company describes searching "all across Korean soil and water" for what it calls high-quality skincare ingredients, framing the brand around what it terms a spirit of discovery and exploration. Individual product lines are tied to named locations: deep-sea water from the waters around the islands of Ulleungdo and Dokdo, birch sap from a forest in Inje, and mugwort from the southern island of Geomundo.

Public records for the brand's earliest history are limited. The founders' names and the company's headquarters city are not documented in available sources, and the founding year of 2017 does not appear on the brand's own site; it is instead corroborated by three independent third-party sources, including the business outlet KED Global (Korea Economic Daily) and the K-beauty retailer Skin Cupid [10][9].

Round Lab is the flagship brand of Seorin Company, a South Korean firm founded in 2017. According to KED Global, Seorin Company positions itself within the clean-beauty movement and reports operating in more than 50 countries [10]. No acquisitions or sister brands are documented in available sources.

The brand summarises its outlook with the phrase "Gentle, Clean, & Effective," and its stated tagline is "Better Skin, Better Round." Round Lab says that every formula is "designed with sensitive skin in mind," free from harsh additives and, in the company's words, "backed by dermatological testing." Alongside this sensitive-skin focus, the brand lists vegan formulations, eco-friendly packaging, and Korean manufacturing among its core selling points.

Its commercial positioning is affordability. The editorial outlet Who What Wear described Round Lab as using "pure, clean ingredients to create products that are equally as effective as they are affordable" [8], placing it in the accessible, drugstore price tier rather than at a luxury one.

Round Lab organises its catalogue into ingredient-led lines, each anchored to a signature material. The 1025 Dokdo line is built on deep-sea water; the "1025" refers to a date of national significance in Korea, marking the resolution of the Dokdo territorial dispute on 25 October 1900, according to Skin Cupid [9]. The company says it was "the first to research and recognise the benefits of deep sea water for human skin," and describes the water as drawn from about 5,000 feet below sea level.

Other lines centre on birch sap from Inje, which the brand claims is "2-3x more effective than water" at maintaining the skin's moisture; mugwort from Geomundo; black soybean; pine; camellia collagen; niacinamide; and panthenol. Its most prominent individual products are the 1025 Dokdo Toner, the 1025 Dokdo Cleanser, and the Birch Juice Moisturizing Sunscreen (marketed as UV Lock). The toner is described by the company as "Korea's undefeated No.1," selected, it says, from more than 10,000 K-beauty brands [1], while the sunscreen is the product most often singled out in editorial coverage.

Round Lab's press page lists mentions in a range of beauty titles, including Allure, Vogue, Glamour, Cosmopolitan UK, Marie Claire, ELLE, and the New York Times' Wirecutter; most of these citations concern the birch-sap sunscreen or the 1025 Dokdo Cleanser [7]. These are collated by the brand itself and are presented without publication dates. Independently, Who What Wear reviewed the range and called the birch sunscreen "one of the most transparent, skin-suiting sunscreens I've ever tried" [8]. The company also states that its 1025 Dokdo Toner was voted the top toner in South Korea for three consecutive years.

Round Lab is active. Its US operation runs a direct online store and continues to release seasonal collections, and its products are stocked at Target in the United States [8]. Reporting from KED Global places Seorin Company in more than 50 countries [10]; one third-party review dates the brand's wider international availability to around 2019 [11], a point after its 2017 founding rather than in conflict with it. The brand's most recent visible activity, including current e-commerce collections, dates to the mid-2020s.