Wellage
Clinical derma-cosmetics from Hugel — freeze-dried capsule delivery for actives that hate water.
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Wellage is the consumer-skincare arm of Hugel, a Korean medical aesthetics company best known for botulinum toxin and HA fillers. The brand's whole signature is a freeze-dried capsule format: pure actives (hyaluronic acid, collagen, centella, vitamin C) get freeze-dried into solid capsules that you mix into a liquid essence right before application, sidestepping the stability problems that water-based formulations have with delicate actives. The Real Hyaluronic Blue 100 Ampoule is the Olive Young Award-winning hero — 9 hyaluronic acid molecular weights, PDRN, panthenol, and a clean fragrance-free finish that punches noticeably above its sub-$30 price. Wellage has won Olive Young's Brand of the Year six years running (2019–2024), which sounds like marketing fluff until you realize Olive Young is essentially the Korean Sephora and that streak is unprecedented for a derma-cosmetic brand. Worth reaching for if you like clean, ingredient-first formulations that take active stability seriously.
Strengths
- + Olive Young Brand of the Year six years running (2019–2024)
- + freeze-dried capsule delivery genuinely solves active-stability problems
- + Real Hyaluronic Blue 100 Ampoule is a 2023 Olive Young Award winner
- + fragrance-free, alcohol-free across the core line
Weaknesses
- − the capsule format takes a beat to get used to (you're mixing two products)
- − limited US retail presence outside Amazon and Olive Young Global
- − newer brand internationally — less editorial coverage than COSRX or Beauty of Joseon
- − premium-mid pricing for what reads as drugstore packaging
The Wellage Story
Wellage launched in 2017 as the consumer-skincare extension of Hugel, the Korean biopharma company that produces Botulax (botulinum toxin) and the dermal filler line The Chaeum. The founding premise was that the same active-stability discipline that medical aesthetics demands should apply to consumer skincare, and the freeze-dried capsule format was developed in-house to deliver pure actives in their most bioavailable form. The Real Hyaluronic Blue 100 Ampoule launched in 2019 and quickly became Olive Young's best-selling ampoule in its category — and the brand swept Olive Young's Brand of the Year award six consecutive years (2019–2024). The line has since expanded into the Real Collagen, Real Cica, and Real Vitamin C series, all built on the same freeze-dried capsule architecture. Distribution has expanded internationally through Olive Young Global, Amazon, YesStyle, and Stylevana — though the brand remains less visible in Western beauty press than its sales numbers warrant.
Shop Wellage by skin type
Curated picks from Wellage's lineup, ranked for each skin type.
All Wellage Products
6 products reviewed and rated.
Real Hyaluronic Blue 100 Ampoule
Wellage's Olive Young Award-winning hero — 9 hyaluronic acid molecular weights plus PDRN, panthenol, and a botanical complex (ginseng berry, neem, wild yam) in an ampoule that delivers genuinely up-to-100-hour hydration. The PDRN inclusion at this price point is unusual; most brands save salmon-DNA actives for $80+ premium serums. Fragrance-free, alcohol-free, parabens-free, silicone-free — the kind of formulation discipline you usually pay $50+ for. Particularly good as a daily hydration base layer for any routine that runs actives that can dry the barrier.
Real Collagen Bio Capsule & Solution
Wellage's two-step capsule + solution kit — collagen capsules dissolved into a peptide-rich serum, K-beauty lab-coat theatre at its best.
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