What Is Centella Asiatica, and Why Korean Skincare Uses It

Centella asiatica is a small, creeping herb — also known as gotu kola — native to wetland regions across Asia, long used in traditional medicine in India, China and Southeast Asia before it became a mainstay of Korean skincare formulation. In Korean beauty marketing it's usually shortened to "cica," from its family name Centellaceae.

Why formulators reach for it

Centella asiatica's chemistry is built around a group of compounds called triterpenoids — asiaticoside, madecassoside, asiatic acid and madecassic acid among them — which is what formulators are actually extracting and concentrating when a product lists the plant or its extract. These compounds are the reason the plant has such a long documented history in topical traditional use, going back centuries in Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese practice, well before modern cosmetic chemistry took an interest.

Where it grows

Sourcing region matters to formulators the way terroir matters to a winemaker — growing conditions affect a plant's concentration of active compounds. Madagascar is one of the sourcing origins Korean formulators have specifically favoured for centella, cited on ingredient lists the way a coffee bag names its estate.

Why it shows up so often in Korean formulation specifically

Korean skincare's broader house style leans toward calming, barrier-supporting formulations built around a small number of well-studied plant actives rather than a long, complex ingredient stack — and centella's long traditional-use history made it a natural fit for that approach as the modern K-beauty industry built out its ingredient vocabulary from the 2010s onward. It's less a single brand's discovery than an ingredient the whole formulation tradition converged on.