numbuzin Sunscreen Review: No.1 Clear Filter Sun Essence, Filter by Filter

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What you’re actually looking at

numbuzin numbers its products instead of naming them, which gets confusing fast. There is a No.1 serum, a No.1 cica pad, and a No.1 sunscreen, and Korean review posts about “numbuzin No.1” are usually about one of the first two. The sunscreen is the No.1 Clear Filter Sun Essence, SPF50+ PA++++, 50ml.

We’ve written about this brand once before, in our tinted sunscreen roundup, but that was No.3 No Filter Tone-Up Sun Serum, a different product with iron oxides in it. This one has no tint.

The five filters, and where you have seen them before

Here is the filter list as INCIDecoder prints it, with the position each one holds in the full ingredient list.^[1]

Position	Ingredient as printed	Also called	Covers
8	Ethylhexyl Triazone	Uvinul T 150	UVB
9	Terephthalylidene Dicamphor Sulfonic Acid	Ecamsule, Mexoryl SX	UVA
16	Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate	Uvinul A Plus, DHHB	UVA
19	Polysilicone-15	Parsol SLX	UVB
40	Bisethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine	Tinosorb S, Bemotrizinol	Both

No zinc oxide, no titanium dioxide, and no MBBT (Tinosorb M) either. Those three are the light-scattering filters that cause cast, and MBBT is the one people miss because it is a chemical filter, not a mineral. We take that apart in our white cast guide.

The interesting part is what happens when you put that list next to Tocobo Bio Watery Sun Cream, which we recommended in that same white cast guide. Tocobo’s list has the same five filters, in the same order.^[2]

Filter	numbuzin No.1	Tocobo Bio Watery
Ethylhexyl Triazone	position 8	position 4
Terephthalylidene Dicamphor Sulfonic Acid	9	5
Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate	16	11
Polysilicone-15	19	13
Bisethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine	40	29

Same five, same sequence, both bottles. That holds for the Korean-market Tocobo; the US-market version is reformulated with an older filter set. If you already own one of these, you are not getting a different UV system by buying the other, as long as you are comparing the Korean bottles.

One caveat on reading those positions. Ingredient lists are ordered by concentration only down to 1%, and below that a brand can list in any order it likes. Tinosorb S sits at 40 of 62 here and 29 of 39 in the Tocobo, and we cannot tell from the label whether either is above or below that 1% line. Position is a hint about ordering, not a measurement of dose.

What is different: the base

The filters match. The rest does not.

numbuzin’s first three ingredients are plant extracts, and each one carries a printed percentage. Purified water is fourth.^[1]

#	Ingredient	Printed as
1	Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Water	20.55%
2	Centella Asiatica Extract	15%
3	Houttuynia Cordata Extract	14.25%
4	Purified Water	none printed

Tocobo’s list opens the ordinary way: water first, then Dibutyl Adipate, then Propanediol.^[2] numbuzin’s total list runs to 62 ingredients against Tocobo’s 39, and that extra length is roughly half botanical extracts, half a nine-deep hyaluronic acid stack.

What the percentages tell you: the brand is willing to put a number on the label, which most sunscreens don’t. That is a real transparency difference and it is checkable.

What they don’t tell you: whether any of it does anything for your skin. A 20.55% licorice root water is still mostly water. Percentages describe the recipe, not the result, and no ingredient list can tell you how a product will behave on your face. If you want the centella claim examined on its own terms, we did that in our centella sunscreen piece.

The Mexoryl question

Terephthalylidene Dicamphor Sulfonic Acid goes by Ecamsule and by Mexoryl SX. It appears in the JAMA absorption studies we covered in our piece on what the sunscreen absorption research actually found: ecamsule was one of the four filters measured in the 2019 trial, and like the others it showed up in blood plasma above the FDA’s study-triggering threshold on day one.^[3]

That is worth stating plainly and then hedging just as plainly. Absorption is not harm. The authors of that trial wrote that their results “do not indicate that individuals should refrain from the use of sunscreen.”^[3] We walk through the whole regulatory picture in are Korean sunscreens safe.

What we could not tell you

We ran our usual Korean-community sourcing on this product twice, with two different keyword sets, and came back with nothing usable. Every candidate the crawl surfaced turned out to be about numbuzin’s No.1 serum, No.1 cica pad, No.3 pack, or No.4 mask, because the brand reuses “No.1” across product lines. Seven more posts were filtered out as sponsored before they reached us.

So this review has no Korean user quotes in it, and saying so beats padding it out with reviews of a different product. There are no wear-test claims here for the same reason: we have read the label, not worn the bottle.

Who this is for

• Consider it if you want a fragrance-free, all-organic-filter daily and you like that the brand prints extract percentages. The only alcohol on the list is Cetearyl Alcohol, a fatty alcohol used as an emollient, not the drying kind.^[1]
• Skip it if you already use the Korean Tocobo Bio Watery and fragrance does not bother you. Same five filters, same order, so you would be paying for a different base rather than different protection. Two caveats: Tocobo lists fragrance as its last ingredient and numbuzin lists none at all,^[1][2] so if you react to fragrance the base difference is what matters most. And the US-market Tocobo bottle is a different formula with an older filter set, which we go through in our Tocobo Bio Watery review.
• Look elsewhere if you want a short ingredient list. At 62 ingredients this is on the long side, and we ranked the genuinely short ones in our minimalist Korean sunscreen piece.

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FAQ

Is numbuzin No.1 sunscreen the same as numbuzin No.1 serum?

No. numbuzin reuses its numbering across categories. No.1 Clear Filter Sun Essence is the sunscreen. There is also a No.1 Pantothenic Acid soothing serum and a No.1 cica pad, and most Korean posts about “numbuzin No.1” are about those.

Does it leave a white cast?

Its filter list contains no zinc oxide, no titanium dioxide and no MBBT, the three filters that scatter light.^[1] That is the structural reason all-organic-filter sunscreens tend to go on clear. We have not worn it, so we are describing the formula, not a result on skin.

How is it different from Tocobo Bio Watery Sun Cream?

The five UV filters are identical and appear in the same order in both lists.^[1][2] The difference is the base: numbuzin puts licorice root water, centella and houttuynia above water with printed percentages, and runs 62 ingredients to Tocobo’s 39.

What does the 20.55% on the label mean?

It means licorice root water is 20.55% of the formula by the brand’s own disclosure. It does not mean 20.55% of a licorice active, and it is not a claim about effect. Most sunscreens print no percentages at all, so the disclosure itself is the unusual part.

Sources