ComfiSkin vs Hwahae
Hwahae is Korea’s biggest skincare review and ranking app, and it promises “ad-free real-user reviews”. It also sells brands review panels with a guaranteed review rate, and ads that blend into its rankings. ComfiSkin takes no money from brands at all.
Its App Store page: “ad-free real-user reviews”
From Hwahae’s business site and Korean App Store listing (translated)The short answer
Hwahae advertises “ad-free real-user reviews”, while selling brands a review panel that guarantees 90% of 100 to 300 users write a review. Its own case study credits the panel with moving a brand from 663rd to 1st in the ranking. It sells native ads inside ranking pages that blend in “without looking out of place”, it tracks you for advertising, and in September 2026 outsiders accessed users’ names, phone numbers, addresses and skin concerns.
What that means: the rankings you trust can be shaped by brands’ budgets, and your skin details have already been exposed once. ComfiSkin takes no brand money, shows no ads, and keeps your skin details on your phone.
Side by side
| ComfiSkin | Hwahae | |
|---|---|---|
| Takes money from brands | Never | Paid review panels, ads and keyword placement2,3 |
| Ads in results | None | Native banners inside rankings3 |
| Tracks you for advertising | No | Yes, says its App Store listing1 |
| Data incident | None, and your notes never leave your phone | September 2026: names, phones, addresses, skin concerns5 |
| In English | Yes | The app is Korean only |
| More than 10 million reviews | No | Yes |
“Ad-free reviews”, with a review panel for sale
Hwahae’s Korean App Store page promises “광고 없는 실사용자 리뷰”, ad-free real-user reviews (translated).1 Its business site sells brands a review panel, 꼼평단, with a “90% 보장 리뷰 작성률”, a guaranteed 90% review-writing rate, from 100 to 300 users. Its featured case study says the brand Skin1004 ran the panel 22 times in a row and moved from #663 to #1 in the ranking.2 Panel reviews are labelled as using a provided product, and panel reviewers can’t delete them for 90 days.4
Labelled or not, a brand that pays for hundreds of guaranteed reviews is buying a place in the ranking. When rankings are what people shop by, money changes what rises to the top.
ComfiSkin doesn’t rank products for anyone. It checks the product in your hand against your skin, and no brand can pay to change the answer.
What that means for you: a top-ranked product on Hwahae may be there partly because a brand paid for the reviews that put it there.
Ads designed to blend in
Hwahae sells native banners inside ranking categories and product pages, which its sales page says appear “자연스럽게” and “이질감 없는”, naturally and without looking out of place (translated). Brands can also buy keyword placement in search.3 Its App Store listing says it tracks your activity in other companies’ apps and websites for personalised ads, and on Google Play it says it shares health info and browsing history with third parties for advertising.1,6 Reviewers complain about constant pop-ups, and one said a “100% match” product broke them out.7
ComfiSkin has no ads, no sponsored placements and no tracking. What you see is the answer, nothing else.
What that means for you: some of what looks like a ranking is advertising made to look like a ranking.
Your skin concerns, exposed
In September 2026, Korean security news reported that outsiders had accessed Hwahae users’ names, phone numbers, addresses and skin concerns, and that the company reported the incident to Korea’s internet security agency.5 We found no regulator fine yet.
Skin concerns are personal. ComfiSkin keeps your skin profile and notes on your phone, so there’s no central store of them to break into.
What that means for you: the skin details you gave Hwahae have already been seen by people who shouldn’t have seen them.
What to do if you use Hwahae
- Check whether reviews say the product was provided. Discount the ones that do.
- Don’t buy just because something tops the ranking. Brands can pay to climb it.
- Check the product against your own skin in ComfiSkin, in English, with no ads and no brand money involved.
Sources
- Hwahae on the Korean App Store: description and App Privacy label. apps.apple.com
- Hwahae for Business, 꼼평단 review panel and case study. business.hwahae.co.kr
- Hwahae for Business, in-app display ads. business.hwahae.co.kr
- Hwahae review management policy, effective 25 August 2025. static.hwahae.co.kr
- Boan News, on unauthorised access to Hwahae user data, September 2026. boannews.com
- Hwahae on Google Play, data safety section. play.google.com
- Apple’s public feed of the 50 most recent Korean App Store reviews of Hwahae, read 11 October 2026 (translated). itunes.apple.com
More comparisons
No brand money. No ads. Just your skin.
Check any product against your skin, in English.
- Free, all of itNo plans, trials or paywalls. Every feature, for everyone.
- No sign-upNo account, no email, no password to lose.
- No ads, no trackingNothing about you is sold, shared or followed around the web.
- Your notes stay on your phoneWith a password-protected backup that only you control.
- Never asks for your faceIt reads the label, not you.
- Answers for your skinYour skin type, concerns, avoid list and routine, every time.