How to Use Korean Toner Pads: What Goes Before and After

By DK Editor
KpopDirect Beauty Desk · September 13, 2026 · Contact: contact@kpopdirect.com

Before you worry about the order, check one thing: most of the best-known Korean toner pads are exfoliating products. Not a toner step, not an essence, and not a gentler version of either. That single detail decides everything else — where the pads go, whether you swipe or press, how often you can use them, and whether your essence is now redundant or more useful than before.

This is where routines quietly go wrong. Pads look like a soaked cotton round, so people slot them in where a toner would go and reach for them twice a day. Then skin starts stinging and the pads get blamed for being "too strong," when the real issue is that a texture-refining product was being used as a hydration step.

A textured pad and an essence do different jobs — the pad's surface is the first clue.

The quick answer

If your pads are a hydrating or calming formula with no exfoliating acids, they sit where a toner sits: right after cleansing, before essence and serum. If your pads contain acids — and many of the popular ones do — treat them as your exfoliation step for that day rather than as a toner. The position in the routine barely changes. What changes is that you skip your other acid products that day.

How to tell which kind you have

Marketing language will not answer this for you. Read two things instead: the ingredient list and the brand's own category for the product.

The complication is that exfoliating acids often appear under names that do not look like acids. Gluconolactone is a PHA. Capryloyl salicylic acid is an LHA. Meanwhile the AHAs you would recognise from our AHA vs BHA vs PHA guide — glycolic, lactic, mandelic acid — are easier to spot, as is salicylic acid. So "no acid in the name" does not mean no acid in the jar.

An embossed side usually signals the brand expects it to remove something.

Here is what three pads sold in the United States say on their own product pages, checked on September 13, 2026.

Product	Acids in the ingredient list	How the brand or retailer files it	Official directions
Anua Heartleaf 77 Clear Pad	Gluconolactone (a PHA)	Described as "a toner pad designed to gently exfoliate dead skin cells"	After cleansing, swipe the embossed side across the face avoiding eyes and lips. Flip to the smooth side and press it onto skin as a hydrating mini mask. States it is safe for daily use AM and PM.
Torriden Balanceful Toner Pad	Gluconolactone and capryloyl salicylic acid; the brand lists PHA and LHA as key ingredients	Tagged "Exfoliating" on the product page, with "Daily Exfoliation" as a stated benefit	After washing, wipe with the embossed side away from the eye area, wipe once more with the opposite side, then gently pat in the extra toner left on the face. Close the lid so pads do not dry out.
SOME BY MI AHA-BHA-PHA 30 Days Miracle Truecica Clear Pad	Three acid families are declared in the product name itself	Sold as an exfoliating pad	After cleansing, wipe the T-zone and areas where dead skin tends to accumulate with the textured side. Flip to the soft side and wipe the whole face, avoiding eyes and lips. Close the jar lid after each use.

Notice which one carries two different acids: the cica pad, the calmest-sounding product on the list. "Balanceful," "clear," "heartleaf" and "cica" describe a mood, not a function. They tell you nothing about whether an exfoliant is in the jar.

Percentages are their own trap. US labelling rules require ingredients in descending order of predominance, but ingredients present at one percent or less may be listed without regard to order. An acid sitting near the end of the list is probably in that low zone — which tells you it is there, not how much of it there is.

DK Editor's view: If a pad has a textured side, assume the brand intends it to remove something. The embossing is not decoration, and it is the clearest visual tell you are holding an exfoliating product rather than a soaked toner.

Swipe it, or leave it on your face?

Short-form video has turned "don't swipe — lay them on your skin for fifteen or twenty minutes" into common advice. None of the three brands above give that instruction for the exfoliating side of the pad.

Anua is the only one of the three that describes leaving a pad on the skin at all, and specifically the smooth side, after the embossed side has already done its pass, with no duration attached. Torriden and SOME BY MI describe wiping only. That gap matters: parking an acid-soaked pad on your face for twenty minutes is a longer and more occlusive exposure than what the brand described and tested.

So the usable rule is not "swipe" or "press." It is that the jar's instruction is the whole instruction, and if it only describes wiping, wiping is the method.

Where the pads go in your routine

A hydrating pad with no acids goes after cleansing and before essence. It is doing the toner's job, so using it and a liquid toner in the same routine is usually duplication rather than layering.

Pads sit right after cleansing — what comes next depends on the formula.

An exfoliating pad also goes right after cleansing, but its placement is not really the decision. Its frequency is. On a day you use acid pads, you are not adding a step so much as spending your exfoliation for that day, so the acid toner, the peeling serum and the scrub stay in the cupboard.

One detail in Torriden's directions is easy to skip past: they tell you to pat in the liquid left on the face afterward. That leftover liquid is part of the product. Blotting it off with a tissue discards the hydrating half of what you bought.

Do you still need an essence?

With hydrating pads, often not. The pad and a watery essence are doing overlapping work, and running both is how a routine quietly reaches eleven steps. Pick whichever one your skin prefers.

With exfoliating pads, an essence becomes more useful rather than less. You have just used an acid and cleared the surface, so a hydrating layer afterward is a sensible follow-up. In that case the two are not competing: one is a treatment, one is hydration. If you are unsure which of your bottles is which, our Korean toner vs essence guide sorts out the categories.

What does not work is a pad, a toner, an essence and a serum inside the same five minutes because each one individually felt light. Four thin layers is still four products.

How often can you use them?

The brands genuinely disagree, which is why generic advice fails here. Anua explicitly states its pad is safe twice daily. Torriden positions its pad as daily exfoliation. Both of those sit alongside the fact that each formula contains an exfoliating acid.

That spread is not a contradiction to resolve — it reflects formulas built to different strengths. The frequency printed on your jar is the only one that applies to your jar. If yours gives no guidance at all and the list includes acids, starting at two or three times a week and watching how skin responds is the cautious read.

Tightness that lingers, stinging on application, or new flaking are reasons to space the pads out or pause them, not to push through. If irritation persists after you stop, that is worth raising with a dermatologist rather than layering something else on top.

The bottom line

Check the ingredient list before you decide where toner pads belong. No acids means the pad is a toner step and probably replaces your liquid toner. Acids means it is an exfoliation step that happens to be shaped like a toner, and the real question becomes how many days a week rather than which bottle comes next.

The pads are a convenience format, not a category of their own. Once you know which job yours is doing, the order takes care of itself.

Sources: Anua — Heartleaf 77 Clear Pad product page · Torriden US — Balanceful Toner Pad product page · Soko Glam — SOME BY MI AHA-BHA-PHA 30 Days Miracle Truecica Clear Pad listing · FDA — Summary of Cosmetics Labeling Requirements. Product pages checked September 13, 2026; formulas and directions can change between versions and regions.

DK Editor
KpopDirect Beauty Desk · contact@kpopdirect.com

KpopDirect — your independent English-language guide to K-beauty and K-pop. This article is informational only and is not medical advice. It does not diagnose or treat any skin condition. Persistent irritation should be assessed by a qualified healthcare professional.