Arbutin
2.00%
The brightening function. It works on uneven tone slowly and steadily, and at this level it also triggers a mandatory Korean warning, which is the next section rather than a footnote.
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GENOSYS
GENOSYS
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Intensive Blemish Balm Cream · SPF30 / PA++
The tube you put on to walk out of the clinic.
A tinted cream built to cover the redness a treatment leaves behind, with SPF30 over the top and two actives at licensed doses: arbutin at 2% and adenosine at 0.04%. Fragrance-free, no phenoxyethanol, and Korea registers it for three functions at once.
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Free delivery over AED 1,000 · Dispatched from Dubai
SPF30
PA++ over full coverage
2%
Arbutin, measured at 1.81%
19.7%
Of the tube is UV filter
0
Colony-forming units on the batch
What it is actually for
The registered carton is unusually specific: this covers redness and blemishes after a dermatological treatment and helps express natural skin tone. That is a narrower and more useful promise than most base makeup makes, and it explains the whole formula — the pigment load, the SPF, the absence of fragrance, and the arbutin sitting underneath it all.
Read across the range
Line up our three SPF products and something looks broken. Each step down carries more UV filter by weight and earns a lower grade. This one carries the most and rates lowest.
| Product | Filters | Filter load | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra Shield Sun Cream | 6 | 17.10% | SPF50+ / PA++++ |
| Multi Sun Cream | 4 | 18.50% | SPF40 / PA++ |
| Blemish Balm Cream | 3 | 19.70% | SPF30 / PA++ |
Two reasons, and both are real. There is no long-UVA filter in this tube — the titanium dioxide reaches short UVA and stops, and the other two are UVB absorbers. And the titanium dioxide at 7.70% is doing two jobs at once: it is the largest filter and it is the white pigment that gives the cream its coverage. Pigment dispersed for opacity is not fully available as UV protection, so you cannot read 7.70% as 7.70% of shielding.
Which is the honest way of saying: a tinted base is a compromise. You get coverage, colour and a real SPF30 in one step. If the day calls for maximum protection, wear the Ultra Shield and put this over it or leave it in the drawer.
The licensed three
The carton declares a triple-function cosmetic — whitening, wrinkle improvement and UV protection — and each function has an ingredient behind it at the concentration the licence requires.
Arbutin
2.00%
The brightening function. It works on uneven tone slowly and steadily, and at this level it also triggers a mandatory Korean warning, which is the next section rather than a footnote.
Adenosine
0.04%
The wrinkle function, at exactly the dose Korea licenses. The same figure appears in every functional anti-ageing product registered there, including our own cushion and sun cream.
Three UV filters
19.70%
Titanium dioxide 7.70%, ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate 7.00% and octocrylene 5.00%. All three were assayed on the batch rather than merely declared.
On the box, and now on this page
Korea requires a specific precaution on any product carrying arbutin at 2% or more, and it is printed on this carton. It is not on most retailers’ pages and until now it was not on ours, which is the wrong way round: the 2% is exactly what earns the brightening claim, so the tradeoff belongs beside the benefit.
“In human application test data for products containing the same ingredient (arbutin at 2% or more), there have been reported cases of papules and mild itching.”
In practice: patch test on your jaw for a couple of days before you wear it over a whole face, and especially before you wear it over skin that has just had a procedure. If you react, stop. This is the same guidance a clinic would give you, and it is not a reason to avoid arbutin — it is a reason to introduce it the way you would any active.
Quality
The certificate of analysis assays every declared active rather than restating the recipe, and it does one test that almost no brand publishes.
| Active | Declared | Found in the batch |
|---|---|---|
| Titanium Dioxide | 7.70% | 7.09% |
| Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate | 7.00% | 6.31% |
| Octocrylene | 5.00% | 4.50% |
| Arbutin | 2.00% | 1.81% |
| Adenosine | 0.04% | 0.04% |
And the important one: hydroquinone under 1 ppm. Arbutin breaks down into hydroquinone, which is banned in cosmetics, so a brand selling arbutin at 2% ought to test the finished product for it. This one does. Lead came in under 20 ppm and arsenic under 10 ppm, which matters for a cream coloured with iron oxides.
Five things it leaves out
The carton carries a five-no-additions mark, and every one of them holds up against the quantitative formula. Preservation is handled by caprylyl glycol, glyceryl caprylate, caprylhydroxamic acid, tropolone and hexanediol instead.
Worth knowing across the range: this is the only one of our three SPF products with no perfume in it at all. The Multi Sun is fragranced at 0.25% with five declared allergens and the Ultra Shield at 0.5%. If fragrance is your problem, this is the tube — read the arbutin section above and patch test anyway.
Worth knowing
Cyclopentasiloxane at 3.50% and cyclohexasiloxane at 2.50% — D5 and D6. They are the reason a cream carrying nearly 20% mineral filter spreads like a light base rather than a paste. European law is phasing them down: Regulation (EU) 2024/1328 caps both at 0.1% in leave-on cosmetics from 6 June 2027. The grounds are environmental rather than skin safety — both were classed as very persistent and very bioaccumulative, and leave-on cosmetics are the largest source of release. Nothing here is restricted where this product is sold, and we would rather you heard the date from us.
Before you add it
Four things this product genuinely does not do, none of which the old page mentioned.
About the botanicals
The old ingredient list led with eucalyptus leaf oil, perilla seed oil and Rumex Crispus root extract. On the manufacturer’s quantitative formula the first two are at 50 ppm and the third at 10 ppm, alongside oregano leaf and a bean-and-birch-bark pair at the same order of magnitude. They are on the list; they are not why the product works. The arbutin, the adenosine, the allantoin at 0.1% and the filters are.
![INTENSIVE BLEMISH BALM CREAM [SPF 30 PA++]](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2FBLEM.jpg&w=3840&q=75&dpl=dpl_5DtM4WKE3bSKkQiVEyChqLKoQF9j)
How to use
Daily on face and neck · reapply after sweat or water
Two days on a small area before a full face, because of the arbutin. Do this before you plan to wear it over freshly treated skin, not after.
Take a small amount at the end of your routine, spread it along the grain of the skin, then press it in with your fingertips. It is the final step, not a primer for something else.
A thin even layer everywhere, then a second pass only on the red areas. Two thin passes cover better than one thick one and stay looking like skin.
It is an SPF30 with no water-resistance claim, so treat any of those as a reset. In this climate that usually means once more before the afternoon.
If your clinic gave you a waiting period before makeup over a treated area, that instruction comes from them and overrides anything on this page.
The batch
Made in Korea and released against a written specification, with heavy metals and degradation both checked.
The batch on file was made in June 2019, so treat the figures above as the specification this product is released against rather than a statement about the tube currently on the shelf.
| pH | 7.44 at 25 °C, inside a 5.50–7.50 specification — high for skincare, normal for a mineral-loaded base |
|---|---|
| Fill | 50.1 g against a 50 g declaration |
| Purity | Zero colony-forming units per ml, for both bacteria and moulds, against a permitted 100 |
| Heavy metals | Lead under 20 ppm and arsenic under 10 ppm — checked because the shade comes from iron oxides |
| Hydroquinone | Under 1 ppm — the arbutin degradation product, tested for and not found |
| Stability | Passed cycling at 4 °C, 25 °C and 45 °C |
| Licence | Korean triple-function: whitening, wrinkle improvement, UV protection |
The formula
The named ingredients with their concentrations, then the complete list.
Aqua (Water), Titanium Dioxide, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate, Cetyl Ethylhexanoate, Butylene Glycol, Glycerin, Octocrylene, Cyclopentasiloxane, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone, Cyclohexasiloxane, Cera Alba, Arbutin, Diisopropyl Dimer Dilinoleate, Sodium Chloride, Sorbitan Olivate, Iron Oxides (CI 77492), Silica Dimethyl Silylate, Mica, Iron Oxides (CI 77491), Caprylyl Glycol, Magnesium Stearate, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Iron Oxides (CI 77499), Aluminum Hydroxide, 1,2-Hexanediol, Allantoin, Glyceryl Caprylate, Adenosine, Caprylhydroxamic Acid, Disodium EDTA, Glyceryl Laurate, Origanum Vulgare Leaf Extract, Eucalyptus Globulus Leaf Oil, Perilla Ocymoides Seed Oil, Tropolone, Phaseolus Radiatus Extract, Betula Platyphylla Japonica Bark Extract, Rumex Crispus Root Extract
Every ingredient, in the same order as the carton in your hand.
Before you use it
Precautions as printed on the GENOSYS carton, including the arbutin disclosure.
The details
Questions
Because grade depends on which wavelengths the filters cover and how available they are. This tube is 19.7% filter against the Ultra Shield’s 17.1%, but it has no long-UVA filter, and its titanium dioxide is doing double duty as the coverage pigment — pigment dispersed for opacity is not fully available as UV protection. A tinted base is a compromise, and SPF30 in one step is a good one.
Korea requires it on any product with arbutin at 2% or more: human application data has reported papules and mild itching. It is printed on the carton. It is not a reason to avoid the product — it is a reason to patch test on your jaw for two days first, particularly before wearing it over skin that has just had a treatment.
One. There is a single iron-oxide shade system in the formula, with no lighter or deeper version. It is built to neutralise redness rather than to match a range of skin tones, and it sheers out. If shade matching matters more to you than coverage, our BB Cushion comes in three.
On one axis, better than anything else we sell in sun care: no fragrance, no ethanol, no phenoxyethanol, no parabens, no mineral oil, all verified against the formula. On another axis, it carries arbutin at 2% with the warning above. Both are true at once, so read both and patch test. That is a more useful answer than yes.
Ask your clinic — that timing is their call, not ours, and it depends on the depth and what else went on your skin. What the product is designed for is the period after that waiting window, when the redness is still visible and you need to be seen in public.
No. It contains beeswax at 2%, which is part of what gives the cream its structure. Worth saying plainly since nothing on our site previously did.
The tube you put on to walk out of the clinic.
INTENSIVE BLEMISH BALM CREAM [SPF 30 PA++]
Free delivery over AED 1,000 · Dispatched from Dubai
![SKIN CARING BLEMISH BALM CUSHION [SPF 50+ PA++++]](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Fcushion_2%2Fmain.jpeg&w=3840&q=80&dpl=dpl_5DtM4WKE3bSKkQiVEyChqLKoQF9j)
![ULTRA SHIELD SUN CREAM [SPF 50+ PA++++]](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Fultra%2Fmain.jpeg&w=3840&q=80&dpl=dpl_5DtM4WKE3bSKkQiVEyChqLKoQF9j)
