Proper skin care promotes good metabolism and the biological activity of skin, helps maintain the skin in a healthy and beautiful state when combined with nutritional nourishment. Health functional foods are being used for the purpose of enhancing efficient skin care. Health functional foods related to skin care maintain the epidermis, dermal fibroblast layer and subcutaneous tissue that form the skin. Efficient functional foods alleviate the signs of endogenous aging that come with getting older and exogenous aging caused by sunlight. Even though the field of skin care related to health functional foods has received less attention and been the subject of less research compared to functional cosmetics which are developing widely, this area of skin care that maintains and improves the layer of dermal fibroblast through the intake of food, is expected to progress with the commercialization of products in many fields when the related technical research development is galvanized and the related patents are applied for. Research into health functional foods related to skin care in Korea started rather late in comparison to other advanced countries where patents for relevant techniques have been applied for since 1990's together with research conducted on how they might be used for practical purposes. This study used the key words ‘skin care, health functional food’ to search for Korean patents that have been applied for at the Korean Intellectual Property Office from 1983 to 2011 using the KIPRIS database, in order to help researchers in the related fields by organizing the patented formulas for health functional foods for skin care which have gained attention recently. According to the number of registrations in each industry field, the total number of patents was 1, 120 we screened the major patents among them, the field with the largest number was food foodstuff non-alcoholic beverage and preparation or treatment(A23L) with 135, then natural plant medicine & medical supplies and cosmetics(A61K) with 112, microorganisms or enzymes(C12N) with 63, heterocyclic compounds(C07D) with 44, horticulture or cultivation of sea weeds, forestry(A01G) 16 times, listed from the highest to the lowest number of applications. It has been revealed that food, foodstuff, non-alcoholic beverage and preparation or treatment(A23L) was the industry field where the most patents for health functional foods related to skin care were registered.