Provided herein are a cosmetic composition, a health functional food composition, a pharmaceutical composition, and a quasi-drug composition that include ionone or a salt thereof as an active ingredient and have an effect of enhancing skin moisturizing, exfoliating skin, improving skin elasticity, inhibiting erythema, improving skin wrinkles, or alleviating skin photoaging. The ionone or the salt thereof has an activity of enhancing skin moisture content, reducing skin moisture evaporation, increasing procollagen secretion, promoting collagen biosynthesis, suppressing collagen fiber damage, suppressing collagen fiber decomposition, inhibiting erythema, and suppressing the thickening of a skin epidermis layer, and thus may be usefully used as a material of functional cosmetics, health functional foods, pharmaceuticals, quasi-drugs, or the like that provide an effect of enhancing skin moisturizing, exfoliating skin, improving skin elasticity, inhibiting erythema, improving skin wrinkles, and / or alleviating skin photoaging.