Brands & OEM
Brand planning, OEM/ODM, minimum orders and packaging. For people making their first product.
Most read
Views over the last 3 weeks, recent ones counting more.- 1Rare in Korean neighbourhood stores, huge abroad: the Beauty of Joseon puzzleNEW
- 2K-beauty lookalikes: how to tell a Korean brand from a 'Korean-style' oneNEW
- 3Writing your first formula brief for a Korean ODM: what to includeNEW
- 4TikTok Shop beauty neared $1B a quarter, yet half of shops sold nothingNEW
- 5How many rounds of formula sample revisions are realistic?NEW
K-beauty box with no Korean on it: counterfeit or EU export pack?
A question on r/AsianBeauty: with their usual European shop out of stock, someone bought Illiyoon Ato Cream on Amazon and received packaging they'd never seen, printed in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, wit
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뷰티업계노트QuestionCan an influencer's beauty brand beat a big lab's products?
On Blind, a Korean workplace forum, someone asked a blunt question. Plenty of influencers expand into cosmetics or supplements. Can a personal brand really outdo products from a big company with hundreds of researchers?
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피부노트ChatRare in Korean neighbourhood stores, huge abroad: the Beauty of Joseon puzzle
A post in r/KoreanBeauty from someone who has lived in Korea for close to ten years: they had never seen Beauty of Joseon on a shelf, even at Olive Young, and did not know a single Korean who used it. They understood it
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Princess packaging, witch concepts, fruit tubes: miss "old K-beauty"?
A nostalgic post in r/AsianBeauty from a Korean user who grew up with these brands. They miss the K-beauty of around 2012–2013: Skinfood's fruit-shaped hand creams and food theme, cupcake lip balms, Etude's princess look
0 1 Solo skincare founder: where should time and money go first?
A one-person founder who just launched a niche skincare brand asked r/ecommerce for help. With an accounting background, e-commerce was new to them. Early traction came from Reddit communities, but video editing was eati
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Things to Prepare Before Your First Cosmetics Brand OEM/ODM Meeting
When you’re preparing to launch your first brand, the most daunting question is, “What should I bring to the manufacturer?” To keep the meeting moving quickly, it’s better to come prepared with numbers rather than concep
0 3 On the shelf for nearly 20 years: which K-beauty steady-sellers survived?
A nostalgic question in r/KoreanBeauty. Prompted by a post about brands constantly launching, reformulating or discontinuing products, a long-time skincare fan (30-plus years in, about 20 of them with K-beauty) asked the
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K-beauty lookalikes: how to tell a Korean brand from a 'Korean-style' one
A post on r/AsianBeauty asking whether a set of toner pads was an 'AB marketing scam' drew more than 140 comments. The poster had noticed near-identical rave reviews across TikTok, including promo videos featuring AI-gen
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How many rounds of formula sample revisions are realistic?
It’s rare to approve a formula right after the first sample, and when revisions drag on, both the timeline and costs grow. I imagine each team has different standards, so I’d like to hear what others think.
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kbeauty.notesTipsWriting your first formula brief for a Korean ODM: what to include
A clear brief saves weeks of back-and-forth. Manufacturers see many vague briefs ("like product X but better"), so a structured one stands out.
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What Should Your First SKU Be? Categories New Brands Often Choose
Your first product becomes the face of your brand. Here are popular categories and their pros and cons.
0 1 - 뷰티업계노트Tips
Packaging MOQs: the hidden cost that surprises small beauty brands
Founders often plan around the formula MOQ and get surprised by packaging: bottles, pumps, caps, labels and boxes each have their own minimums.
0 1 - 뷰티업계노트Tips
To start a cosmetics brand, you need to register as a “responsible cosmetics distributor” — how this differs from manufacturing
To distribute cosmetics under your own brand in Korea, you need to register as a responsible cosmetics distributor. This also applies if you outsource manufacturing instead of making the products yourself.
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Starting a beauty brand abroad with a Korean manufacturer: private label vs custom formula
Many founders outside Korea work with Korean ODMs. The first decision is how custom you go.
0 1 - 뷰티업계노트Tips
If you've chosen a brand name, trademark search comes before the logo
It’s really difficult to go back once you’ve finished the packaging and find out there’s already a trademark with the same name. As soon as you have name candidates, start with a trademark search.
0 1 Beauty marketing you fall for anyway: which brands do it best?
On r/Sephora, someone asked which brands consistently nail their marketing. The poster admitted they fall for the hair brand Gisou's marketing every time. Names that came up, and why Glossier: many said it targeted peopl
0 0Can you run a customer's review video as an ad? Where the line is on UGC reuse
Videos customers post on their own often outperform brand ads. So teams keep asking whether they can run UGC (user-generated content) as ad creative. There is more to check than it seems. Issues that come up Scope of per
0 0- 뷰티업계노트News
Kolmar Korea and Cosmax post record Q2, lifted by indie brands
Korea's two biggest cosmetics ODMs both posted their best quarter ever. Kolmar Korea Operating profit ₩110.3B (+50.2%) Revenue ₩861.3B (+17.9%) Cosmax Operating profit ₩73.7B (+21.3%) Revenue ₩794.9B (+27.5%) What drove
0 0 Fake K-beauty is surging, and Korea is launching a way to report it
If a bargain serum ever felt off, you are not alone. Counterfeit Korean-brand beauty is a growing problem, and Korea is responding. Key numbers from the August 2026 report: 97.7% of counterfeit Korean-brand goods seized
0 0- 뷰티업계노트Question
Refill stations: are they worth keeping from a brand's point of view?
Refill stations for shampoo and body wash in big stores and zero-waste shops are more common than a few years ago. But brands that have run them seem divided on whether they pay off. The case for Shows sustainability thr
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