Since the Purito drama, I've been getting lots of questions on how to recognise a reliable manufacturing company etc. Briefly put: there's no way to know for sure, even the most renowned ODMs in West were caught up in high profile scandals at some point. With that in mind, you

still familiarise yourself with Korean manufacturing companies and how they're perceived within the industry. Every month I publish something called "Korean Beauty Company Reputation Ranking" on my blog to highlight the current market position of Korean ODMs.

I know that from a consumer standpoint these rankings might not make much sense, but professionals refer to these rankings to understand the authority (and to a certain degree trustworthiness) of Korean manufacturers. These ranking take into account several factors,

how their products are performing, how the general public perceives their products, how professional talk about their company etc etc etc. Again, there's no way to be 100% sure of a company's trustworthiness, but this can give you a general understanding of the market.

FYI in Korea beauty brands are legally required to disclose the original manufacturer of their products, so you can learn who made the formula of your favourite products on the back of the packaging! If you can't read Korean, I recently discovered that this ecommerce

https://beautyboxkorea.com/  (not sponsored btw lol) always includes information on the original manufacturer of beauty products in English. I checked a few products and the information seems to be reliable.

And this the latest Company Reputation Rankings of Korean manufacturers ^^ https://themonodist.com/2020/12/10/november-2020-korean-beauty-company-ranking-announced/