How Do They Get The Snail Mucin For Cosmetics?

How Do They Get The Snail Mucin For Cosmetics
The common garden snail. Photo: Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images Mucin is a popular ingredient in K-beauty products like sheet masks. But how do they get the slime? By Apr 18, 2018, 9:30am EDT Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years.

The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox, You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here, I’d arrived at a snail farm an hour outside of Bangkok to interview the four Thai researchers who founded Siam Snail, and instead found myself reluctantly posing for pictures as snail cream was applied to my face, no closer to learning how exactly the snail slime had been extracted.

Instead of the private interview and viewing of the mucin extraction process I’d been promised, I was surrounded by at least 25 members of the Thai media, listening to a presentation in Thai with the occasional translation whispered my way. As we walked through the small farms — dense clusters of vegetation where snails are left to roam freely — the PR rep assured me I’d be able to return later to ask all my questions and photograph slime being collected from the snails, as I’d originally arranged.

The tour ended with a group lunch by the river, complimentary jars of night cream, and encouragements to post on social media. After a month and a half of trying to schedule a follow-up visit, I received a text late on a Friday night saying that the board had decided to keep its processes confidential.

It was slowly starting to become clear why snail creams have become a topic of confusion and debate among skin care devotees. Weeks later, with emails to snail specialists gone unanswered, it was certain: This is a thorny subject. The question of how snail slime is extracted — and the related concern of whether it can be done humanely — is a difficult one to answer, but maybe not for the reasons you think.

As K-beauty products have become more visible in the US, sold at a variety of price points in places like Sephora, Target, CVS, and Nordstrom, so too have snail creams.
Made using snail mucin, the slime is collected, typically processed into a filtrate, and then formulated into the final product (though there are spas where snails directly crawl across your face ).

In ancient Greece, snails were used as a topical treatment for inflammation, and today snail mucin is also harvested in places like France and touted as one of the secrets to the effortless beauty of Italian women. The snail beauty boom as we know it today was kicked off in the early 1980s when Chilean farmers, who were producing escargot for the French market, noticed that handling their slimy livestock led to softer hands and cuts healing more quickly.

Oreans are really good at picking up what they’ve heard somewhere else and running with it,” says Janice Kang, the senior director of marketing and new business development in the Americas and Europe for DKCOS, whose beauty products are sold in places like Walmart, Target, and Ulta.
She believes Korea’s position as a snail cream superpower is in large part because “snails are a big part of the diet and drinking culture,” which made it easy for many farms to quickly transition from the food industry to the beauty industry.

Michelle Wong, a science educator and chemistry PhD whose blog Lab Muffin explores the science behind beauty products, adds that in South Korea “consumers are more likely to try out novel ingredients even if they seem a bit ‘gross’ they’re a bit more results-focused.” The snail’s role as food source can obfuscate its role in the beauty industry.

In the absence of images of how snail mucin is collected, it’s not uncommon for blogs to use images of snails being cooked, Taken from cooking shows or demonstrations of how to scrape a snail from its shell, these images of snails literally being killed aren’t a good approximation for the process of mucin collection — to produce mucin, snails need to be kept alive.

Chel Cortes, who runs the K-beauty-inspired online store Holy Snails, thinks “that a lot of the scrutiny” in the West around snail creams “is due to the animal itself,” tapping into “an innate bias against” what is not a particularly beautiful creature.

Blog posts theorizing about how snails are treated can also focus on the “weirdness” of the ingredient.
On her own blog, Racked contributor Tracy E.
Robey offers a humorously NSFW post about how just because something, like snail slime, sounds gross, it doesn’t mean there’s anything inherently wrong with it.

Complete with a Whitney Houston GIF asking for receipts in response to blogger claims that snails are being harmed, Robey writes that the history of the West denigrating Asian people based on the consumption of certain animals means there are “real life implications of once again calling Asian stuff weird and cruel with,

in this case, zero evidence.” What there is evidence of, according to Dr. Joshua Zeichner, the director of cosmetic and clinical research at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, is that “snail slime has been shown to have many benefits on aging skin rich in hyaluronic acid,” giving it hydrating properties.

While it’s “unclear whether are truly better than traditional moisturizers or ingredients like retinol,” they have been shown to “stimulate collagen production and enhance wound healing,” which is one major reason they’ve become so popular among skin care devotees.

According to Wong, “snail slime also seems to have whitening properties,” and since it “contains allantoin (an anti-irritant) and a number of moisturising ingredients, it’s likely to help,
Counteract the irritation caused by many whitening” agents, tapping into a “huge market in Asian countries.” According to the brand representatives I spoke with, though there are many ways to collect mucin, popular techniques usually involve leaving snails in a dark room and having them crawl on a surface like mesh, specially made glass, or a tarp, and then collecting the slime afterward.

Brands like Mizon and CosRX use mucin collected through some version of this method. DKCOS sources from multiple suppliers that use different methods. Snail8 collects slime by stimulating snails by hand, and techniques involving a steam bath or salt water also exist. How Do They Get The Snail Mucin For Cosmetics An employee of a cosmetic laboratory prepares a product for Jeanne M, a cosmetic brand that uses snail slime. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Whether because of the 2016 discovery that certain companies were outsourcing the folding of beauty masks to private homes, or the reminders that certain clothing manufacturers have continually employed child labor, shoppers today have good reason to ask critical questions about where products come from.

That there are so few images online of the actual collection process can be troubling, and in the absence of clear supply chains and manufacturing procedures, it can be easy to worry that some wrongdoing is being covered up. But according to various brand representatives, it’s less that suppliers are trying to hide what they’re doing wrong.

They’re trying to hide what they’re doing right. Alicia Yoon, the founder of Peach & Lily, an “online portal” for K-beauty products, credits supplier evasiveness, whether it’s about their process for collecting “snail mucin or even botanical extracts,” to the fact that having “the most cost-effective and highest-quality ingredients secret sauce in a highly competitive industry.” That’s why CosRX’s supplier won’t allow filming at its facilities, out of “concern that their refinement technique be leaked,” says team manager Hye-Young Lee, who says that “with the K-beauty boom,” there’s a real concern that domestic and international competitors might be trying to “take note of their valuable technology.” The secrecy around proprietary information means that only designated CosRX staff are allowed to visit and regularly inspect their supplier’s facilities.

Ang says that a few of DKCOS’s suppliers won’t allow anyone from the brand to visit at all. So when PR reps for beauty brands didn’t answer my questions, there was a chance it was because they didn’t have any answers themselves. The process of getting those answers, and having English-speaking reps contact their Korean offices and suppliers for sensitive industry information, can stretch the process for weeks or even indefinitely.

Even Lee, who has previously fielded similar questions and provided redditors with documents broadly outlining the mucin collection process of CosRX’s supplier, still took weeks to answer as she waited on information and translations from other teams within the company.

Because of these barriers, South Korea’s ban on animal testing in cosmetics, which went into effect fully in February 2017, is often pointed to as proof that animals in the industry are being treated well. “The topic of animal abuse across various industries has sparked controversies in Korea, and Korean consumers are quite vigilant and vocal about what they’re consuming,” says Yoon.

Though there’s a distinction between animal testing and using animal byproducts, she, along with Lee and Kang, point to these laws as a reason customers can feel confident that snail farms are following humane standards. “Looking away from the emotional standpoint, it just doesn’t seem cost-effective” to harm them, adds Cortes, pointing out that snails, which produce mucin throughout their lives, are moneymakers. How Do They Get The Snail Mucin For Cosmetics Snails crawls on a woman’s face in a beauty salon in Japan. Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images Because beyond all the perceived weirdness of snail slime and the usual questions about whether any specific beauty product truly holds the answer to ageless or “perfect” skin, one question remains the most contentious: Are the snails suffering? And if they are being treated poorly, can they even feel pain? Snails aren’t the cutest or sexiest of the animal rights causes, which might be why so few resources about their treatment in the beauty industry are available online.

Apart from beauty blogs featuring images of snails being cooked, or forums with people talking through allegations of cruelty, the only easily accessible information from a major animal rights organization comes from a PETA article and beauty product roundup,
Though the article is correct that some companies use salt in the process of collecting mucin, its claim that this is “known to harm” snails conflicts with its linked source, which assures “those concerned about the animal rights issues” that “the snails are left unharmed by the process.” (When I first reached out to the organization in February for comment, I was told this would be looked into, but as of publication, the article has not been amended.) Many researchers looking at animals with simple nervous systems, like lobsters, snails, and worms, argue that because these animals cannot process emotional information, they cannot experience suffering, a claim that PETA has challenged.

“Any time that animals — no matter their size — are raised for their body parts or secretions, you can bet that cruelty will be involved,” says Jason Baker, PETA’s vice president of international campaigns. “Given all we know about their capacity to experience pleasure and suffering, it’s inexcusable to treat them callously like pieces of laboratory equipment to be manipulated, used, abused, and discarded for any reason.” Baker also says that because these products aren’t vegan, Korea’s animal testing ban isn’t enough of an assurance that snail creams are cruelty-free, pointing out that “since the early 1980s, experimenters have documented that snails and other gastropods detect and will try to escape from painful stimuli.” The cited studies do show that snails retreat from certain painful stimuli, though they also concede this could be a reflex rather than the more complex emotional response and pattern of behavior we associate with suffering.

One source also cites the controversy over whether anesthetized invertebrates’ slowed response to painful stimuli is proof of dulled pain or simply because their muscles are too relaxed to react. Intended to better inform laboratory procedures when dealing with invertebrates, many of these studies note the physical reactions of these animals while still acknowledging that we cannot draw definite conclusions about how they process pain.

While researchers and animal rights activists are still debating the highly subjective definition of suffering and trying to find ways of testing and measuring it, some authorities, like Canada’s Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, have concluded that “the balance of the evidence suggests that most invertebrates do not feel pain.” “There’s a lot of debate about the extent to which animals feel pain and suffering, even amongst biologists,” says Wong, so if you haven’t made up your mind yet, you aren’t alone.

Snail slime remains a contentious, as well as popular, outcome of the K-beauty boom in the US. And while many of the brands I spoke with admitted that snail mucin receives more scrutiny than most other ingredients in the beauty industry, there still aren’t many easy answers about how each company gets its snail mucin or how invertebrates process the sensation of crawling over mesh or being put in salted water.

“Unfortunately, the beauty industry is shrouded in mystery. I think it’s been that way since it was first created,” says Cortes of Holy Snails, who thinks the “beautifying” of products and the importance of brand stories have in many cases led to “marketing in the way of information.” In the face of barriers presented by marketing and proprietary information, it’s good to question the products we purchase and what we know about them.

Are snails killed for snail mucin?

During the 80s, farmers in Chile producing edible snails seemed to have softer hands and healed from cuts faster. That is when we realised the benefits of snail secretion. Now before you think that snail mucin is nothing but the slimy trail that snails leave behind, stop right there.

How do brands get snail mucin?

How is snail mucin collected? For Cosrx products, snails are placed over a mesh net in a dark and quiet room. As nocturnal creatures, the snails prefer this environment. For about 30 minutes, the snails are left alone to freely roam the net, leaving mucin in their trails.

Does harvesting snail mucin hurt snails?

Snails are having a moment, at least as far as skincare goes. In recent years, products infused with snail mucin, or slime, have been popping up in American drugstores and luxury beauty stores alike, with offerings ranging from affordable snail mucin face masks to a $300 “EscarGlow” facial,

Though I haven’t yet reached “get snail mucin injected into my face” levels, I’m not above rubbing snail secretions on my skin if it means I’ll eventually have the glowing, blemish-free cheeks of a Renaissance-painting cherub.
As I slather on gloopy slime three times a week, though, I try to avoid thinking about the snails that produced it.

In my pursuit of great skin, am I inadvertently contributing to the torture and murder of innocent snails? Though snail mucin has been the subject of various trend pieces in recent years, using these secretions for cosmetic purposes isn’t new. The Chilean skincare brand Elicina was among the first to use snail secretions in its products, claiming that it was inspired by local farmers whose hands became softer upon handling garden snails.

South Korea, which a 2017 Deloitte report called a “global innovation leader in skincare,” latched on to the trend soon after.
And since 2011, South Korean cosmetics brands that sell snail-related skincare products have been flooding the U.S.
Skincare market, according to the market research firm Euromonitor International.

Which brings us to the little-known world of snail farming. Snails have been part of the human diet for over 30,000 years ; there is even archeological evidence that suggests that the ancient Romans considered escargot a delicacy and raised snails in pens near their homes.

Today, the global market for edible snails is worth about $1.2 billion, according to a 2017 report by The Irish Times,
These edible species are also used in mucin-infused products; otherwise, other kinds of snails, and their secretions, may be toxic to humans.) Notably, snail-slime infused skincare products may be more popular in countries where snails are traditionally eaten, including parts of Europe and Asia.

Janice Kang, senior director of marketing and new business development in the Americas and Europe for Korean beauty brand DKCOS, recently told Racked that since snails are already “a big part of the diet and drinking culture” in Korea, it was easy for local farmers to transition from the food industry to the cosmetics industry.

As snail mucin’s popularity has surged, farmers have increased their output to accommodate both the new skincare market and robust demand from the culinary industry.
In Italy, where there are more than 4000 snail farms, the global snail slime craze has been a boon for the heliciculture industry.
In the last 10 months alone, we’ve seen a 46 percent increase in snail slime, due to demand from the cosmetics industry,” Simone Sampo, President of Italy’s National Heliciculture Association, told The Telegraph last year.

Moroccan snail farmers also benefited: 85 percent of the 10 tons of snails raised there annually are exported to cosmetics companies, and the country’s farmers plan on increasing their output, the Morocco World News reported last year, Still, divining how farmers extract the mucin can at times prove elusive.

The Polish company Aspersa Snails International, which has a 1.5 hectare farm in the city of Grodziec and has been in business since 2011, works with an Italian lab to provide mucin to skincare companies. Bartłomiej Mielnik, whose family owns the farm, told The Outline that the company exports most of its snails to France, Italy, and Spain for culinary purposes, but also works with the aforementioned lab — which he declined to name — to extract mucin from their snails.

“They put the snails into a special machine and the snails produce the mucus,” he said. “Afterwards, we take them back to the farm. After processing, they should be on the farm for about two months so they can eat and be strong again.” Mielnik said that this process doesn’t harm the snails, but clarified that they need to be able to “regenerate” post-extraction so they can produce more slime.

Mielnik’s reticence regarding extraction methods points to a common theme in the snail skincare industry.
Siam Snail, which reportedly uses a manual technique to induce snail slime, invited a Racked reporter on a press tour with the promise of getting an inside look at the mucin extraction process.
Instead, she was taken on a tour of the farm and given some complimentary skin cream.

Siam Snail’s board of directors, she was later told, had decided they wanted to keep the extraction process confidential. According to Racked, CosRX team manager Hye-Young Lee said the company wouldn’t allow any filming at its facilities due to concerns that “their refinement technique be leaked.” (CosRX did not respond to The Outline ‘s request for comment.) As snail mucin’s popularity has surged, farmers have increased their output to accommodate both the new skincare market and robust demand from the culinary industry. Shutterstock.com Heliciculturists and cosmetics labs may not reveal their mucin-extraction techniques in detail, but they tend to emphasize that these techniques don’t harm the snails.

Older extraction methods involved dunking snails in pots of water mixed with salt or vinegar, but several companies say they’ve developed processes that don’t injure snails — presumably not only to assuage the fears of animal rights activists like PETA, who claim captive snails suffer from the effects of captivity and stress even when farms use these allegedly humane methods, but also to maximize profits.

(If you have to kill a snail in order to extract its slime, you’re going to need a lot more snails than if you find a way to keep them alive.) One Italian cosmetics lab, Donatella Veroni, has developed a machine called the OzoSnail, which the company says preserves “the total health of the mollusc,” especially when compared to “other extraction methods which use invasive and damaging techniques,” like sodium chloride, acetic acid, or ammonia.

In 2013, a French farmer named Louis-Marie Guedon claimed he had developed a “secret technique” for producing 15 tons of snail mucin every year, Cosmetics Design Europe reported,
The process involved using salt to extract the snail slime, but Guedon maintained that the animals weren’t harmed by the process.

Some mucin products use slime extracted from the Cornu aspersum species of snail, also known as the little gray snail or the garden snail. South Korean skincare company CosRX, however, uses mucin harvested from the Achatina fulica, or the giant African snail.

A CosRX spokesperson told the K-beauty blog The Klog that its mucin is sourced from a company called CoSeedBoPharm Co. “The snails are placed over a mesh in a dark and quiet room,” a CosRX spokesperson told the website. “For about 30 minutes, the snails are left alone to freely roam the net, leaving mucin in their trails.

Throughout the process, there is no external process applied to the snails or the mesh to force mucin production.” Snail slime may have recently become a popular skincare product in the U.S., but the American heliciculture industry is relatively small.

One American snail farmer told The Outline he estimates there are two or three snail farms in the U.S., including his own.) “This country doesn’t have a tradition of eating snails,” said Ric Brewer, owner and head wrangler of Little Gray Farms, a snail farm in Quilcene, Washington that raises the the Cornu aspersum species for gastronomy, not cosmetics (“wrangler” means he handles the snails).

“The snails that are typically not used for escargot are not native to this country, even though at least one has been here for hundreds of years.” Because these creatures aren’t native to the U.S., he said, the USDA considers several snail types, including the little gray, an invasive species.

On its website, the agency describes snails as “agricultural pests” with the potential to “cause considerable crop damage.” Brewer said that currently, he has no plans to expand into the skincare game.
I’m working towards having be more sustainable in terms of what I can produce,” he said.
Skincare would take significantly more,

Though from what I understand, with the new machines that have been developed in Italy, you don’t need to kill the snails in order to get slime from them.” The Long Island-based farm Peconic Escargot, which was founded in 2015 and was the first snail farm to be USDA-certified in the country, also raises the Cornu aspersum for culinary markets.

Taylor Knapp, the company’s founder and head snail wrangler, told The Outline that he looked into mucin production before determining it would be too costly. Cosmetics companies “can probably buy it cheaper from Europe than they’d be able to get it from us,” Knapp said. “To my knowledge, there’s definitely no one in the U.S.

raising these things for cosmetic purposes right now.” Despite snail mucin’s recent surge in popularity in the U.S., it’s still unclear whether these products actually have any long-term benefits. Snail slime acolytes claim that concentrated mucin has hydrating properties, can smooth out wrinkles and acne scars, and is capable of improving hyperpigmentation.

Dermatologists and other experts, however, remain divided on the matter. Some, like New York City plastic surgeon Dr. Matthew Schulman — the EscarGlow doctor — have hopped on to the snail slime train. At his Park Avenue office, Schulman injects patients’ faces with snail secretions through a process called microneedling.

(The so-called “vampire facial” involves a similar technique, except with one’s own plasma instead of snail secretions.) “There is anecdotal evidence that proteins in snail slime have anti-aging benefits, and clinical trials have looked at that, as well as reversal of sun damage, and shown improvement,” Schulman told The Cut in 2015.

Others are more skeptical. “From a marketing standpoint, the ingredients sound compelling,” plastic surgeon Joel Studin told The Cut. “However, there are no good studies to show it really works for anti-aging.” Ric Brewer, the Washington snail farmer, said said he’s experienced the immediate benefits of snail mucin firsthand.

“Snail slime contains glycoprotein, which is a protein that absorbs water. The cells of the protein fill with moisture, and that fills the cracks and wrinkles in skin, at least temporarily,” he said. “I usually wear food safety gloves, but the few times I have been harvesting, I will notice my hands are softer.” Taylor Knapp, the Long Island farmer, says he has doubts about the efficacy of snail mucin.

“We’ve got our hands on thousands of snails a week. My wife and I haven’t noticed softer hands, unfortunately,” he said. “So for now, it seems a bit gimmicky.” Either way, I’ll probably keep rubbing snail serum on my face, but I’ll be thankful for the snails who helped me do it. Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Aspersa Snails International is located in Częstochowska.

The farm is located in the Polish city of Grodziec. Pocket Casts / Overcast / Stitcher / TuneIn / Alexa / Anchor / 60 dB / RadioPublic / RSS / “OK Google, play news from The Outline.”

How is snail serum harvested?

What is snail slime? – The snail slime used in beauty products comes from the species Cryptomphalus aspersa (which used to be known as Helix aspersa Müller ), which is the humble garden snail. The slime is usually listed in ingredients lists as snail secretion filtrate,

Snails actually release several types of slime, and it’s actually the slime that’s produced when the snail is stressed that’s in the products, not the stuff that they use to lube up the ground.
The slime is commercially harvested by stressing cultivated snails, such as by poking them with a stick, or by feeding them salty water.

The slime is purified by filtration (hence “secretion filtrate”). The snails aren’t killed in the process since they release unwanted chemicals when they die, but it doesn’t sound particularly pleasant either!

Does snail mucin really come from snails?

I Put Snail Slime on My Face for 1 Month. Here Are the Results When I think of snails, the first things that come to mind are herb butter, baguettes, and Chardonnay, and the next is the slime. You know, the stuff the snails leave a trail of in their wake.

The same stuff that’s been a K-beauty skin-care staple for several years and has now even made its way to the big-box stores.
I’ll put escargots in my face any chance I get, so as a woman of the world, why on earth haven’t I smeared their slime on my face yet? After all, incorporating snails in skin care is nothing new.

Back around 400 B.C. in ancient Greece, Hippocrates reportedly prescribed crushed snail shells in an ointment to treat inflammation, notes a, The idea was reborn in the ’80s, the reported, when workers on a Chilean snail farm began observing their hands were softer and plumper hands after handling the gooey creatures.

As with the eureka moment described by regarding red and anti-aging at French vineyards, the seeds of a beauty trend were planted.
Historically many societies, especially ancient ones and more recently France, have used live snails as anti-aging ‘devices,” says, a plastic surgeon in New York City and the founder of the RéVive skin-care line.

Today’s skin-care companies are hot on the trail. In the early 2000s, also known as snail oil, snail serum, snail filtrate, snail slime, or just “the slime,” began popping up in Korean beauty products, and as that market began to expand globally, it started picking up a following in the West.

For the uninitiated: Yes, snail mucin is the actual snails secrete to protect themselves from cuts and scrapes as they slither through the world.
Apparently, the gross factor hasn’t kept beauty lovers at bay.
Beauty brands like Cosrx,, and Mizon sell wildly popular sheet masks, creams, and bottles of straight-up slime that tout miraculous benefits, from smoothing fine lines and wrinkles to reducing the appearance of acne scarring and to giving you that supple, dewy glow that has become the bar for skin-care influencers, coveted by every beauty fan with a pulse.

Snail farming in Italy has increased 325 percent in the last two decades, largely due to cosmetic demands, the, What’s the mix in snail trails that makes it a veritable fountain of youth? “Snail mucin is packed with nutrients such as hyaluronic acid, glycoprotein enzymes, antimicrobial and copper peptides, and proteoglycans,” says the New York City–based aesthetician Charlotte Cho, the cofounder of the K-beauty blog,

“The hyaluronic acid helps in the anti-aging process as it hydrates the skin, and antimicrobial peptides have been known to help reduce acne and treat hyperpigmentation,” says Cho, whose New York City brick-and-mortar pop up,, opened recently to legions of snail slime devotees lining up around the block to snag the stuff in real life.

RELATED: Many K-beauty lovers and millennials are doing the same, and why wouldn’t they? The slime itself and the top slime-containing products are fairly cheap (The will set you back $9, and is about $19). But even though the wonder goo is accessible to the masses, the Park Avenue elite hasn’t turned up its nose at it.

For example, the New York City plastic surgeon Matthew Schulman, MD, has created a buzz and snagged press attention with his $375 “EscarGlow Facial,” which injects snail mucin directly into your pores via, And while high-end brands with steep price tags don’t seem to count the slime as a core ingredient, and understandably so, because it’s readily available on the cheap, they haven’t discounted the mollusk altogether.

Instead, they’ve opted for a pricier bit of snail juice, cone snail venom, which is a toxin so potent that it disables fishes swimming near it and rivals the anti-aging effects of, according to an, (And if you’ve got around $600 to spend on a single product, you can find it in the coveted by RéVive.) Plus, because mucin is an that just needs a touch of pasteurization to be application-ready, per a, it’s clean, sustainable, and supposedly a miracle worker.

A beloved source for millennials looking to stave off wrinkles, hails snail mucin as a cure for acne scarring.
While that seems like a stretch, I’d for sure blow $20 on a bottle of slime on the possibility before shelling out a couple grand on lasers, especially with no downtime or side effects to consider.

Drew Barrymore and Katie Holmes are fans, notes, RELATED: And because I’m not a, I really have no excuse to be a couple of years late to this trend. My mucus of choice was, of course, what K-beauty lovers consider the holy grail: the, which is 96 percent pure mucin.

Is snail mucin harvested ethically?

How is Snail Mucin collected? Are snails harmed? Traditional methods of collecting snail Mucin were cruel – the snails were essentially soaked in pots of water with salt, vinegar or other chemicals to force them to excrete Mucin. Thankfully, the methods for collecting snail Mucin have changed considerably! These days, there is a range of cruelty-free methods of snail production and slime extraction.

Study shows that the quality of the Mucin itself depends on breeders keeping good environmental conditions for their snails,
As a result, breeders themselves control what the snails eat, how they are kept and how the slime is extracted.
This also helps in confirming snail Mucin products as cruelty-free.

Because snail Mucin products are used topically, only edible snails are used in skin care products. The popular edible snail species are the Roman snail (Helix pomatia), the common ingredient of the snail, and its close relative the garden snail or the baby gray (Helix aspersa).

Where is snail mucin made?

Where does snail mucin come from? Snail mucin comes straight from the snail. It is the secretion, or the mucus, that is left behind when a snail scoots along.

Is snail 92 ethical?

Notes on sustainability – Ethical : All COSRX products are cruelty-free. This cream obviously isn’t vegan as it contains snail mucin, however, COSRX assures customers that this ingredient is collected in a non-forceful way. The snails are allowed to roam freely over a mesh net which collects the mucin they leave behind.

Is snail mucin cruel to snails?

How Snail Mucin Is Harvested? – Traditional methods of harvesting snail mucin were cruel – the snails were essentially dunked in pots of water with salt, vinegar or other chemicals to force them to excrete mucin. Thankfully, the methods for harvesting snail mucin have changed considerably.

These days, there are a variety of “cruelty-free” methods of snail production and slime extraction. In fact, research shows that the quality of the mucin itself depends on breeders keeping good environmental conditions for their snails. As a result, breeders themselves regulate what the snails eat, how they are kept and how the slime is extracted.

This also helps in certifying snail mucin products as cruelty-free. In Italy, for example, snail mucin is extracted by immersing the snails in a special steam bath that acts like a spa for snails. The snails are not harmed in this process. In other farms, the snails are simply placed in an environment where they can move over a bumpy surface, because this causes them to make slime like they do naturally.

How do you get snail mucin from a snail?

How Do They Get The Snail Mucin For Cosmetics The common garden snail. Photo: Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images Mucin is a popular ingredient in K-beauty products like sheet masks. But how do they get the slime? By Apr 18, 2018, 9:30am EDT Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years.

The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox, You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here, I’d arrived at a snail farm an hour outside of Bangkok to interview the four Thai researchers who founded Siam Snail, and instead found myself reluctantly posing for pictures as snail cream was applied to my face, no closer to learning how exactly the snail slime had been extracted.

The tour ended with a group lunch by the river, complimentary jars of night cream, and encouragements to post on social media.
After a month and a half of trying to schedule a follow-up visit, I received a text late on a Friday night saying that the board had decided to keep its processes confidential.

As K-beauty products have become more visible in the US, sold at a variety of price points in places like Sephora, Target, CVS, and Nordstrom, so too have snail creams. Made using snail mucin, the slime is collected, typically processed into a filtrate, and then formulated into the final product (though there are spas where snails directly crawl across your face ).

Oreans are really good at picking up what they’ve heard somewhere else and running with it,” says Janice Kang, the senior director of marketing and new business development in the Americas and Europe for DKCOS, whose beauty products are sold in places like Walmart, Target, and Ulta. She believes Korea’s position as a snail cream superpower is in large part because “snails are a big part of the diet and drinking culture,” which made it easy for many farms to quickly transition from the food industry to the beauty industry.

In the absence of images of how snail mucin is collected, it’s not uncommon for blogs to use images of snails being cooked, Taken from cooking shows or demonstrations of how to scrape a snail from its shell, these images of snails literally being killed aren’t a good approximation for the process of mucin collection — to produce mucin, snails need to be kept alive.

Blog posts theorizing about how snails are treated can also focus on the “weirdness” of the ingredient. On her own blog, Racked contributor Tracy E. Robey offers a humorously NSFW post about how just because something, like snail slime, sounds gross, it doesn’t mean there’s anything inherently wrong with it.

In this case, zero evidence.” What there is evidence of, according to Dr.
Joshua Zeichner, the director of cosmetic and clinical research at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, is that “snail slime has been shown to have many benefits on aging skin rich in hyaluronic acid,” giving it hydrating properties.

According to Wong, “snail slime also seems to have whitening properties,” and since it “contains allantoin (an anti-irritant) and a number of moisturising ingredients, it’s likely to help, counteract the irritation caused by many whitening” agents, tapping into a “huge market in Asian countries.” According to the brand representatives I spoke with, though there are many ways to collect mucin, popular techniques usually involve leaving snails in a dark room and having them crawl on a surface like mesh, specially made glass, or a tarp, and then collecting the slime afterward.

That there are so few images online of the actual collection process can be troubling, and in the absence of clear supply chains and manufacturing procedures, it can be easy to worry that some wrongdoing is being covered up.
But according to various brand representatives, it’s less that suppliers are trying to hide what they’re doing wrong.

Ang says that a few of DKCOS’s suppliers won’t allow anyone from the brand to visit at all.
So when PR reps for beauty brands didn’t answer my questions, there was a chance it was because they didn’t have any answers themselves.
The process of getting those answers, and having English-speaking reps contact their Korean offices and suppliers for sensitive industry information, can stretch the process for weeks or even indefinitely.

Because of these barriers, South Korea’s ban on animal testing in cosmetics, which went into effect fully in February 2017, is often pointed to as proof that animals in the industry are being treated well.
The topic of animal abuse across various industries has sparked controversies in Korea, and Korean consumers are quite vigilant and vocal about what they’re consuming,” says Yoon.

Apart from beauty blogs featuring images of snails being cooked, or forums with people talking through allegations of cruelty, the only easily accessible information from a major animal rights organization comes from a PETA article and beauty product roundup,
Though the article is correct that some companies use salt in the process of collecting mucin, its claim that this is “known to harm” snails conflicts with its linked source, which assures “those concerned about the animal rights issues” that “the snails are left unharmed by the process.” (When I first reached out to the organization in February for comment, I was told this would be looked into, but as of publication, the article has not been amended.) Many researchers looking at animals with simple nervous systems, like lobsters, snails, and worms, argue that because these animals cannot process emotional information, they cannot experience suffering, a claim that PETA has challenged.

One source also cites the controversy over whether anesthetized invertebrates’ slowed response to painful stimuli is proof of dulled pain or simply because their muscles are too relaxed to react. Intended to better inform laboratory procedures when dealing with invertebrates, many of these studies note the physical reactions of these animals while still acknowledging that we cannot draw definite conclusions about how they process pain.

Snail slime remains a contentious, as well as popular, outcome of the K-beauty boom in the US.
And while many of the brands I spoke with admitted that snail mucin receives more scrutiny than most other ingredients in the beauty industry, there still aren’t many easy answers about how each company gets its snail mucin or how invertebrates process the sensation of crawling over mesh or being put in salted water.

Are snails cooked alive?

Science on the sentience of animals such as snails, clams, mussels, and scallops is not clear. Until it is, we should assume that they can indeed suffer. Most of us are familiar with clams, oysters, and snails. If we are veg*n, we may decline to eat them, but we probably don’t give much thought to their life experience.

Indeed, the concept of life experience for a clam or snail might seem laughable. However, along with other mollusks such as scallops and mussels, they are eaten in large numbers by humans. Sometimes they are eaten raw, and other times they are steamed alive in their shells. Snails are starved and then boiled alive.

In addition, researchers use them in toxicology testing, while cosmetic and personal care companies “milk” snails for their mucus, which kills the snail through dehydration. Obviously, to do these things to sentient creatures is reprehensible. But whether bivalves and snails are sentient is not clear scientifically.

Part of the problem is that science still doesn’t define “sentience” or “consciousness”. How does it arise? What are the minimum criteria? Does consciousness exist on a continuum, or is there a clear dividing line? If there is a state of partial consciousness or sentience, who much is enough for a species to be considered worthy of moral consideration? Brains are expensive in evolutionary terms.

If an animal can survive without one, it is functionally unnecessary. And without one, an animal may not feel anything, including pain. Pain cues animals to react to harm, usually by moving away from the source of the pain. Nociception is different from pain perception.

Sensory neurons on the animal’s body react to noxious stimuli. Pain requires a brain, while nociception is a lower-level process. If an animal can feel pain, nociception may translate as that sensation. However, animals that lack a brain, such as mollusks, do behave as if they have nociceptors. Snails may have opioid responses and mussels release morphine when confronted with noxious stimuli.

Both reactions suggest that these animals do, in fact, feel pain. While mollusks don’t have brains per se, they do exhibit some nervous system centralization. They have several pairs of ganglia connected to a nerve cord. The organization is complex enough that some neural processing may be possible.

The overall number of neurons comes into play as well, but science can’t say how many neurons is “enough” for sentience. Smaller animals may not need larger brains to manage their smaller bodies and thus may achieve consciousness with fewer neurons. Some evidence also exists for the ability of these animals to learn through association or sensitization.

Given how little we currently know about the sentience of bivalves and snails, the author urges us to apply the precautionary principle, and assume sentience until we have more data — failure to do so could result in immense suffering. Even though the science on this subject is limited, advocates can use this review to help question preconceptions.

Does snail mucin actually have snail in it?

Snail Mucin Is a Dermatologist-Approved Moisturizer You Should Know About Also known as snail slime, snail mucin is one of the buzziest new ingredients in the skincare world. Yes, snails, as in the little critters that live in your garden or show up on the menu at fancy French restaurants.

There’s a certain ick factor involved, to be sure, but if you can get over that, is a surprisingly effective ingredient. Dermatologists do point out that it’s not yet quite as well-studied as many of its other skincare ingredient counterparts, and, as such, that it’s important to sort out the science from the hype.

Meet the Expert

, MD, is a board-certified dermatologist in Raleigh-Durham, NC.
Ted Lain, MD, is a dermatologist in Austin, TX.

Ahead, experts help you figure out whether or not it’s worth making snail slime a part of your skincare routine. Snail Mucin Type of Ingredient: Moisturizer and collagen-stimulator Main Benefits: Moisturizes skin,, aids in skin healing and regeneration.

Who Should Use It: In general, snail mucin can be used on all skin types, though its hydrating properties make it especially choice for those with dry skin, says Lain. And unless you’re allergic to the ingredient, it’s generally well-tolerated by most. (Though keep in mind that since it is derived from an animal vegans should take a pass).

How Often Can You Use It: This largely depends on why you’re using it—since it does have many benefits—and what type of product it’s found in. Generally speaking, you can use snail mucin once or twice per day. Works Well With: It’s often combined with antioxidants and retinol, as well as common skincare staples such as,, and other moisturizing ingredients.

Don’t Use With: Because research is still limited, it’s unknown whether or not it interacts poorly with any other ingredients, says Lain.
Right now, there’s no evidence that it does.
Simply put, it’s the excretion from a snail, which is why it’s also known and appears on ingredient labels as snail secretion filtrate, or SSF.

Snail mucin is naturally created and used by snails as a way for them to protect themselves, says Desai-Solomon. “It’s a trusted ingredient in the K-beauty world and has become a popular one because it can offer noticeable results,” she adds. Worth noting: This isn’t an excretion that comes out whenever the snail moves, but rather a substance that’s excreted when the snail is under stress, points out Lain (more on the importance of that in a minute).

Moisturizes the skin: According to Lain, snail mucin contains moisturizing agents that work to repair the barrier function of the skin, both locking out irritants from the environment while also simultaneously locking in moisture.
Stimulates collagen production: “Because snail mucin is a stress-induced excretion, it’s comprised of ingredients meant to repair or protect from injury,” Lain explains. “These include growth factors, which work by triggering the growth of new skin cells and new collagen.” And, as we know, more collagen equals fewer wrinkles and younger-looking skin. Desai-Solomon adds that it also contains glycolic acid, another known collagen-booster.
Soothes irritation: is another key component in secretion, an ingredient with healing properties that calms irritation, smoothes the skin, and stimulates cell regeneration.
Delivers important vitamins and minerals: Snail mucin is loaded with a list of good-for-your-skin nutrients, including anti-inflammatory zinc and healing manganese. It contains copper peptides, also lauded for their collagen-increasing and wrinkle-decreasing effect. It also contains vitamins A and E, both of which are great,

Does snail mucin really come from snails?

The same stuff that’s been a K-beauty skin-care staple for several years and has now even made its way to the big-box stores. I’ll put escargots in my face any chance I get, so as a woman of the world, why on earth haven’t I smeared their slime on my face yet? After all, incorporating snails in skin care is nothing new.

As with the eureka moment described by regarding red and anti-aging at French vineyards, the seeds of a beauty trend were planted.
Historically many societies, especially ancient ones and more recently France, have used live snails as anti-aging ‘devices,” says, a plastic surgeon in New York City and the founder of the RéVive skin-care line.

For the uninitiated: Yes, snail mucin is the actual snails secrete to protect themselves from cuts and scrapes as they slither through the world. Apparently, the gross factor hasn’t kept beauty lovers at bay. K-beauty brands like Cosrx,, and Mizon sell wildly popular sheet masks, creams, and bottles of straight-up slime that tout miraculous benefits, from smoothing fine lines and wrinkles to reducing the appearance of acne scarring and to giving you that supple, dewy glow that has become the bar for skin-care influencers, coveted by every beauty fan with a pulse.

“The hyaluronic acid helps in the anti-aging process as it hydrates the skin, and antimicrobial peptides have been known to help reduce acne and treat hyperpigmentation,” says Cho, whose New York City brick-and-mortar pop up,, opened recently to legions of snail slime devotees lining up around the block to snag the stuff in real life.

For example, the New York City plastic surgeon Matthew Schulman, MD, has created a buzz and snagged press attention with his $375 “EscarGlow Facial,” which injects snail mucin directly into your pores via, And while high-end brands with steep price tags don’t seem to count the slime as a core ingredient, and understandably so, because it’s readily available on the cheap, they haven’t discounted the mollusk altogether.

How Snail Mucin Is Packaged #snails #mucin #skincare #shorts

, a beloved source for millennials looking to stave off wrinkles, hails snail mucin as a cure for acne scarring. While that seems like a stretch, I’d for sure blow $20 on a bottle of slime on the possibility before shelling out a couple grand on lasers, especially with no downtime or side effects to consider.

Does handling snails hurt them?

Download Article Download Article Snails are great pets. Not only are they really cool looking, but they’re easy to care for and cute in their own right. Having a snail as a pet, though, presents specific challenges. Unlike other popular pets like dogs, cats, hamsters, or rabbits, they’re sort of difficult to handle.

1 Wash your hands. The first thing you should do before anything else is to wash your hands. Washing your hands will make sure that you don’t introduce anything – bacteria or chemicals – to the snail or to its environment.
- Use an antibacterial soap.
- Use warm water.
- Make sure all soap is thoroughly washed off your hands.
2 Secure your play area. Before you play with your snail, you need to make sure the room you’re in is secure and snail-ready. By having a room that is secure, you’ll safeguard your snail’s life and make playtime a happy time for both of you.
- Remove any other pets (specifically dogs or cats) from the room. Dogs or cats might see the snail as something to toy with or even eat.
- Inform any other people what you’ll be doing, so they don’t disturb you.
- Turn off any loud music or the TV. This is important for the snail and so you can concentrate and won’t be distracted as you’re playing.
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3 Play with your snail at night. Night time is the best time to play with your snail. This is because most snails are active at night and sleep during the day. If you try to play with your snail during the day, it might not do very much and may just withdraw into the shell.
- The best time for you and your snail is probably between 6PM and 8PM, depending on your schedule and region.

1 Let the snail crawl onto your hand by itself. The best way to pick your snail up is to let it crawl onto your hand on its own accord. This is by far the safest way for the snail to be carried. Picking a snail up by its shell or body may damage the shell or hurt the snail.
- Place your hand flat against the bottom of the snail’s cage near the snail.
- Move your hand very slowly in the general direction of the snail.
- Let the snail crawl onto your hand.
2 Lift your hand, slowly. Once the snail has crawled onto your hand, you can slowly lift your hand out of its enclosure. Make sure to lift your hand slowly, as you don’t want to scare the snail or potentially drop it.
- After you’ve lifted your hand out of the tank, move it slowly toward the surface of a table.
- Place your hand flat against the surface of the table and allow your snail to move around.
- Avoid shaking the table or moving your hand suddenly.
3 Lower the snail to a new surface. After you’ve got the snail on your hand and have moved it out of the enclosure or somewhere else in the enclosure, lower your hand down and allow the snail to hop off your hand. This is important, as you’ll want to give your snail the freedom to move as it pleases and to explore new areas.
- Lower your hand slowly.
- You can lower your hand to a new place in the enclosure. This is probably the best and safest bet.
- Consider creating a “playground” tank with new rocks, obstacles, and even snail treats (lettuce, cucumbers, and apples).
- Avoid lowering the snail onto the floor. If you do so, there is a chance you or someone else could step on it.

1 Let it move around. After you’ve gotten yourself ready to play with your snail, you should give it the opportunity to move around. Ultimately, your snail will have the best time if it is moving around on its own accord.
- Let the snail crawl around your hand.
- Let the snail crawl around its playground. If you litter food around the snail’s new playground, chances are it will move around to investigate the food and other new additions.
- Avoid trying to move the snail if it is already moving. You may hurt it. In addition, you may scare your snail, which will make it much more likely that the snail will hide from you next time you go to play with it.
2 Stroke its shell. If your snail seems to be in a friendly mood, it will be okay to stroke its shell a little bit. Stroking or touching the shell is a great way to interact with your snail and to “play” with it.
- Stroke or touch the shell lightly.
- Stroke or touch the shell with the grain, rather than against it.
3 Play gently. You need to be gentle whenever you play with or handle your snail. As living creatures, they are delicate and can be hurt relatively easily. Make sure to:
- Never apply any pressure on to the snail’s shell.
- Always move very slowly when handling your snail.
- Be conscious of the fragility of the snail.
4 Pick the snail up as little as possible. While you should avoid picking the snail up, there are several things you should do and not do if you do decide to pick up your snail. This is important, since if you do something incorrectly, you may hurt your snail.
- Do not try to pick up your pet using something sharp.
- Do not pick up your snail by its shell. The only time this may be appropriate is if your snail is completely withdrawn into its shell and you need to move it. When you do move your snail this way, make sure to be gentle and to avoid applying any pressure to the shell.
5 Avoid touching the area around the opening of the shell. When handling your snail, you should make sure to always avoid touching the area around the opening of the shell. This is because a snail’s shell grows at its opening. This makes the area around the opening much more delicate and sensitive.
- Always grip the shell with two fingers from the top and rear of the shell.

1 Return the snail to its tank in a safe manner, if you’ve removed it. After playing with your snail, make sure to return it safely back to its tank. Returning it to its tank safely is extremely important as you want to make sure not to harm your snail.
- As with removing your snail from the tank, do so slowly and gently.
- Make sure you position your snail up right and in a safe location. Avoid placing the snail on a limb, rock, or in any other precarious position in the tank.
2 Wash your hands. After you’ve handled your snail, you need to make sure to thoroughly wash your hands immediately. This is important as snails carry some diseases and infectious agents that are potentially dangerous to us and the people around us.
- Use warm water.
- Use an antibacterial soap.
- Use plenty of water and wash in between your fingers.
3 Secure your snail’s tank. After you’ve returned the snail to its tank safely, you need to make sure the top or lid to the tank is completely secured. This is important, since your snail may leave its safe enclosure and become lost if you don’t secure the top of the tank.
- Place the top on your tank, if there is one.
- Make sure that the lid is completely on and there are no holes or gaps in it.
- Secure the clips or other fasteners from the tank to the lid.

Ask a Question 200 characters left Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Submit Advertisement Article Summary X Before playing with a pet snail, make sure to wash your hands so that you don’t introduce bacteria to the snail’s environment.

Then, place your hand flat against the bottom of the cage and very slowly move your hand toward the snail so it can crawl into your hand. Next, lift it slowly out of the tank and let it move around on your hand. You can also put it down on a different surface and create a snail playground with rocks or treats, such as lettuce or apples.

For advice from our Veterinary co-author on how to know when your snail is in a mood to play, read on! Did this summary help you? Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 141,221 times.

Does snail bait hurt snails?

Author: Dr. Beth Turner Published: May 27, 2021 Our mission is to help save dogs’ and cats’ lives through our educational content. To support our efforts, this page may contain affiliate links, We earn a commission for qualifying purchases – at no cost to you. How Do They Get The Snail Mucin For Cosmetics A beautiful garden full of big healthy plants and flowers melts the heart and soul of gardeners. And nothing is more painful, except banging your pinky toe, than seeing your garden damaged by tiny little creatures that leave behind trails of slime. But in the quest to remove these destructive snails and slugs to maintain a beautiful and lush garden, we risk causing harm to our pets.

Why? The typical compound that is meant to kill snails and slugs can also potentially kill our pets.
Most snail and slug poisons, which can come in a green or blue-colored liquid or granular form, contain a compound called metaldehyde, which is extremely poisonous to cats and dogs.
Eating as little as 1 ounce of 3% metaldehyde can cause toxicity in a 10-pound dog.

Metaldehyde kills snails and slugs by causing them to dehydrate (it does this both by disturbing their ability to produce their protective mucus coating and by causing them to swell). In cats and dogs, it has a much different effect, an effect which can be quite devastating and even fatal!