If you spend enough time in the esthetics corner of the internet, you have probably seen the debate...
Spicules are suddenly everywhere. They are being called “liquid microneedling,” showing up in Korean serums, incorporated into professional resurfacing treatments, and discussed as if they are an entirely new skincare invention.
Along with that popularity has come skepticism – Are spicules safe? Why would we intentionally put microscopic pieces of sponge into the skin? Do they stay there? Is there enough research? Is this simply another K-beauty trend that moved faster than the science?
These are fair questions, and before I continue I want to acknowledge I am not a chemist or any type of scientist for that matter. However, I have done extensive research, and have spoken to many manufacturers in Asia + Russia, and here is what they've shared with me:
First, there is an important piece missing from much of the above conversation, which is spicules are trendy right now, but the concept of applying sponge-derived siliceous structures to the skin is not new. Modern researchers have been studying purified sponge spicules as a skin-delivery technology for decades.
That does not mean every spicule product is automatically safe or that every claim made about them is supported. And it certainly does not mean that decades of traditional use can substitute for modern safety research.
It does mean that describing spicules as an entirely unstudied skincare fad is inaccurate. So that's exactly why I went looking for the paper trail.
First: What Exactly Is a Spicule?
Spicules are microscopic structural elements that form part of the skeleton of many species of sponge.
Depending on the sponge species, spicules can be composed primarily of biosilica—hydrated silicon dioxide—or calcium carbonate. The sponge-spicule research most relevant to modern skincare has largely focused on siliceous spicules from marine and freshwater sponges. They are naturally needle-like and that geometry is exactly why researchers are interested in them.
As you know, the stratum corneum is extremely good at its job. It is designed to keep things out, and because of that it presents a challenge when scientists or formulators want to deliver large or water-soluble compounds through the skin.
Spicules offer one possible solution: use extremely small naturally occurring needle-like structures to temporarily disrupt that barrier and create pathways through which other molecules can travel.
This is why the scientific literature often refers to them as topical microneedles and why they're being investigated as a dermal/transdermal delivery platform.
Before K-Beauty There Was Badyaga
One of the most interesting parts of the spicule story begins long before Korean skincare.
In Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, a preparation known as badyaga—or bodyaga—has a long history of topical use.
Badyaga is made from dried freshwater sponges, including species historically associated with Spongilla and Ephydatia. The dried sponge contains the same type of microscopic siliceous skeletal structures we now call spicules. And we can document this history much further back than the modern beauty industry.
Badyaga appears in the nineteenth-century Russian Encyclopedic Lexicon, published in St. Petersburg beginning in 1835. (The badyaga entry is cited in Volume 4, page 80).
Later Russian sources describe badyaga as a traditional folk remedy used topically for bruising, contusions, rheumatic complaints and other conditions. Ground dried sponge was mixed with water, fat or oil and rubbed or applied to the skin. Historical references also describe cosmetic use, including creating temporary redness or a flushed appearance through mechanical skin stimulation.
That does not mean Russian women were performing modern Korean-style spicule peels in the 1800s. But it establishes something important: topical application of freshwater sponge material containing siliceous spicules predates modern K-beauty by well over a century.
Badyaga Eventually Became a Registered Russian Drug Product
The story becomes even more concrete when we move from folk medicine into Russia's pharmaceutical system.
The earliest Russian state drug-registration record I have been able to verify for badyaga is registration number 70/183/36, dated March 30, 1970.
The registration identifies Tula Pharmaceutical Factory LLC as the registration-holder/manufacturer and lists the product as Badyaga powder. That gives us documented pharmaceutical use going back more than five decades.
Modern Russian drug references online continue to list badyaga preparations. The pharmacologic action is described as local irritation associated with the microscopic silica needles contained in the freshwater sponge material. So even historically, the physical action of these microscopic structures was understood to be central to what the preparation did.
From Badyaga to Modern Spicule Peeling
The modern professional spicule-treatment story becomes easier to trace through 2B Bio Beauty and Aladdin Peeling.
The European company behind 2B Bio Beauty, Libinvest Cosmetics, states that its laboratory was founded in 1987 and that the 2B Bio Beauty brand officially launched in 1997.
ADP-Derma, a Korean company now specializing in spicule technology, describes a European spicule peeling technique emerging around 1987, associated with freshwater-sponge spicules and the treatment later known as Aladdin Peeling. ADP-Derma states that the team behind its Korean operation subsequently introduced and developed the treatment throughout Asian markets.
That history is provided by the companies themselves rather than an independent academic historian, so I acknowledge that this is documented company history, not independent proof of the first spicule treatment ever performed.
But....fortunately, we have another useful date.
Spicule Peeling Was in South Korea by 2006
2B Bio Beauty's published company timeline states that it entered the South Korean market in 2006, along with Malaysia and that in 2007 its Bio Peeling system was being recommended in connection with dermatology education in Seoul.
By 2006 there is documented use of spicules and its use in dermatology education in Seoul. That's approximately two decades before today's consumer spicule boom.
And today, the Aladdin Peel is available through hundreds of hospitals, Korean-medicine clinics and esthetic practices in Korea.
What About the United States?
Here again, the historical record is easier to document through established professional brands. 2B Bio Beauty's spicule treatments entered the American market in 2009.
This is important because it's a very different story from the impression created by today's social-media conversation. Many describe spicules as a new, emerging or unfamiliar category. What is new is not necessarily the technology, it's the mainstream awareness around it.
Why Spicules Suddenly Feel So Trendy
Professional spicule treatments and consumer spicule skincare are not necessarily interchangeable.
Professional treatments may use significantly different concentrations, application techniques, particle characteristics and protocols than what's found in a daily serum.
What has changed over the past several years is that K-beauty companies have taken the concept and made it accessible in consumer-friendly serums, ampoules and homecare products.
That is what brought spicules out of treatment rooms and onto TikTok, Reddit, beauty shelves and mainstream Western retailers.
And it's important to add that technology can suddenly become culturally popular even when its scientific or professional history goes back much further. So I think the better question is not whether spicules are trendy, but whether they're actually do what we're claiming they do.
This Is Where My PubMed Dive Began
The strongest scientific case for sponge spicules is not that they are magical exfoliators. It is their ability to temporarily alter the skin barrier and enhance delivery of other compounds.
A landmark 2017 paper published in Molecular Pharmaceutics investigated siliceous spicules from Haliclona species as topical microneedles.
Researchers found that topical application physically disrupted the skin in a dose-dependent manner and that the spicules could remain within the treated skin for at least 72 hours.
Why does that matter?
Because it created a sustained window for ingredient penetration. In porcine skin, the treatment increased penetration of a flourescent dye by approximately 33-fold compared with the untreated control. Accumulation of that molecule into and across the dermis increased by approximately 62-fold.
In the mouse model, absorption was also significantly higher than untreated controls and higher than the dermaroller comparison used by the researchers. This is not a manufacturer or influencer claim, this is a peer-reviewed drug delivery research paper.
A 2019 study published in Biomaterials Science gives us one of the clearest visual and quantitative pictures when it comes to what spicules actually do. They studied concentration, massage pressure, treatment time, the spicules dimensions to understand the underlying mechanisms. What they found was, spicules can produce a very large number of microscopic pathways through the superficial skin barrier, and those channels don't immediately disappear.
One of the biggest questions we are asked is "do spicules get expelled from the skin?"
I could not find a PubMed study that conclusively demonstrates one universal answer.
What the published research does demonstrate is that certain spicules remain detectable within treated skin for at least 72 hours and that the associated microchannels gradually close over about five days in one animal model.
We also know that sponge spicules are made of biogenic silica rather than plastic. Research into sponge biosilica confirms that these structures are highly hydrated silica biomaterials.
For now, there is limited data on how the spicules actually expel themselves – but it is thought since they accelerate cell turnover they actually shed off with the skin.
So until there is direct human histologic clearance research answering that exact question, we think the responsible answer is:
Spicule studies demonstrate temporary retention and subsequent barrier recovery, but the exact fate of the spicule have not been established well enough to make sweeping statements.
Lets be clear, this isn't an anti-spicule statement. Remember, spicules have been used for centuries but we don't have a definitive answer as of yet.
However, we are encouraged that new emerging data will be shared soon. In fact, I found a 2020 study where spicules combined with flexible liposomes for topical delivery of small interfering RNA, or siRNA showed a dramatic increase in siRNA penetration compared with controls and demonstrated measurable gene knockdown in an animal model.
What this means is the physical delivery ability of sponge spicules is significant enough that pharmaceutical researchers are studying the technology for molecules that ordinarily have considerable difficulty crossing skin.
And there a lot more studies (and these are just the ones in English):
A 2022 paper in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology specifically investigated natural siliceous spicules as a dermal delivery system for cosmetics and therapeutics, and found spicules can significantly enhance dermal delivery of biologically active compounds.
Another recent publication looked at sponge spicules as a delivery system for an antimicrobial peptide targeting acne.The spicules increased penetration of the peptide by approximately sixfold. Researchers also evaluated a 1% sponge-spicule gel by itself in a human clinical component. After 14 days, acne lesion counts decreased by 51.4%. What's particularly exciting about this research is that there is human clinical evidence.
And last to share, (although there's a lot more if you go digging), a 2026 paper from researchers affiliated with Yonsei University and clinical centers in Korea investigated a GHK peptide-functionalized sponge-spicule delivery system. In an artificial human skin model, the spicule system delivered more GHK into deeper skin than a simple mixture of free peptide and spicules and increased type I collagen expression in the experimental system.
So given all of this research, and knowing that modern day studies of spicules are still limited, it's completely legitimate to question whether spicules are safe. And with all of the questions, it's important to remember context matters. Like, where they are sourced? What type of spicule is it? What's the purification process? Length? All of these things matter – context always matters. Asking whether spicules are safe is like asking if a chemical peel is safe. We need to know which acid, pH, how long is it applied, on what type of skin, etc. It's definitely a more nuanced conversation.
I will say that at Kin, we distribute professional Korean skincare, so yes – we often have a front-row seat to what's coming out of Korea. We also are able to speak directly with our suppliers. And because of that, we've learned that spicule technology has a much longer history than mainstream America knows about. But honestly, we're happy with all of the questions. They're questions we ask ourselves, and we realize that good esthetics shouldn't be built around fear or blind enthusiasm. It should be built around understanding the skin, the technology, and being willing to follow the evidence wherever it takes us.
And right now, the evidence tells us something much more interesting than either side of the social-media debate:
Spicules aren't new. Although they are relatively new to modern research, they aren't unstudied. And lastly, we've been able to witness some pretty incredible before + afters and we hope because of this, there will be a lot more research in the future!
Research referenced in this article
Zhang S, et al. Skin Delivery of Hydrophilic Biomacromolecules Using Marine Sponge Spicules. Molecular Pharmaceutics. 2017.
Zhang C, et al. Skin delivery of hyaluronic acid by the combined use of sponge spicules and flexible liposomes. Biomaterials Science. 2019.
Skin Delivery of siRNA Using Sponge Spicules in Combination with Cationic Flexible Liposomes. 2020.
Kim TG, et al. A novel dermal delivery system using natural spicules for cosmetics and therapeutics. Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology. 2022.
He W, et al. The topical application of Sphistin12-38 in combination with sponge spicules for the acne treatment. Drug Delivery and Translational Research. 2025.
Hong W-K, et al. Redox-Responsive GHK-Conjugated Sponge Spicules for Sustained Dermal Delivery and Enhanced Collagen Synthesis. Micromachines. 2026.
Moon JY, et al. Hidden risks behind the cosmetic use of silica spicules for transdermal delivery. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 2026.
Please note this blog is educational and is not intended to establish that every product containing sponge spicules has the same efficacy or safety profile. Spicule source, purity, morphology, concentration, formulation and treatment technique vary considerably.
