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Skin, K-beauty, Korea trips and the beauty industry — ask and share
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 1K-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
0 1Dosan Park street: walking the Tamburins, SINOON and Diptyque flagships
Haus Nowhere Dosan isn't the only reason to walk around Dosan Park. Along the streets ringing the park, beauty and lifestyle concept stores are scattered: a standalone Tamburins flagship, a flagship for Korean skincare b
0 0EU packaging rules (PPWR) now apply: what changes for cosmetic packs, and when
The EU's new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) started applying in stages on August 12, 2026. It entered into force in February 2025, and obligations now phase in all the way to 2040. Timeline from the Euro
0 0Seoul Yangnyeong Market
Seoul Yangnyeong Market is Korea’s largest comprehensive Korean medicine complex, with more than 800 herbal medicine-related shops. All kinds of medicinal ingredients from across the country gather here. Seoul Yangnyeong
0 0Celebrity beauty brands: do you still buy them?
Every few weeks there is another famous name on a lipstick. Launch roundups this summer were full of celebrity lines, fashion-house collaborations and founder spin-offs, and K-pop idols keep fronting Korean brands as amb
Poll
Does a celebrity or idol name make you more likely to buy a beauty product?
Pick one to see the results
0 0Greener packaging: if you could change just one thing first, what would it be?
Everyone wants sustainable packaging, but budgets and timelines are limited. Among brand managers, "what do we change first?" always splits the room. Options that come up most Mono-material: matching pump, cap and bottle
Poll
Greener packaging: which one would you change first?
Pick one to see the results
0 0ODMs are posting record results. What does that mean for small brands’ production slots?
The two biggest Korean ODMs just had record quarters, and reports say factories now run busy year-round as the off-season fades. Good news for the industry, but early-stage brands may feel it differently. Worries small b
0 0Skip-care: is the Korean routine getting shorter?
For years the "10-step routine" was the image of Korean skincare. Lately beauty press keeps pointing to the opposite idea: skip-care, cutting a routine down to the steps that actually do something. What skip-care usually
0 0K-beauty now leads EU imports, and the compliance bill arrives in August
According to a market-analysis newsletter, Korean cosmetics now hold 21.7% of EU imports, ahead of the US at 19.7%. At the same time, a wave of regulation lands all at once. Three regimes taking effect between July and A
0 0EU Responsible Person: set up your own entity or outsource it?
To sell cosmetics in the EU you must have a Responsible Person (RP). The RP handles CPNP notification, keeps the Product Information File (PIF) and deals with authorities. Small brands usually start with an RP service fr
Poll
How is your EU RP set up right now?
Pick one to see the results
0 0Refill 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
0 0Writing a product brief for the lab: don't leave these out
Work with an OEM/ODM lab or in-house R&D team and you will often hear "if only the brief were more specific." Samples bouncing back several times is often less about formulation skill and more about gaps in the brief. He
0 0Korea warns: that single-use vial is a serum, not eye drops
Those tiny single-dose vials are cute and travel-friendly. They also look a lot like disposable artificial tears, and Korea's food and drug safety ministry (MFDS) issued a warning about exactly that in August 2026. What
0 0What does '기능성화장품' (functional cosmetics) on a Korean skincare box mean?
Shop for skincare in Korea and you'll often see 기능성화장품 on the box. It means 'functional cosmetics'. In short It's a Korean regulatory category for cosmetics that make specific efficacy claims The best-known ones are brig
0 0K-beauty M&A in 2025: 26 deals worth $1.8B, the biggest since COVID
M&A data provider ION Analytics tallied K-beauty deal flow for 2025 (as of November 2025). Overall 26 K-beauty deals worth $1.8B, a post-COVID record Four of the top 10 deals of the past five years came in 2025 Four priv
0 0Luxury anti-aging cream vs budget basics: does price track results?
Luxury creams versus drugstore basics: if one costs several times more, does it work several times better? It's a topic that keeps flaring up in communities. "The price gap mostly comes from elsewhere" Many point out tha
0 0Fake K-beauty: 6 red flags before you pay
The more popular a Korean product gets, the more copies turn up on marketplaces and reseller accounts. Skincare forums keep repeating the same clues: Price far too low. If it costs much less than on the brand's official
0 0Beauty advent calendar season is here. Great value or drawer clutter?
It is late September and advent calendars are already appearing, including more K-beauty editions than ever. Every year the same debate starts on beauty forums. The case for: A low-risk way to try many products, includin
0 0800 sheet masks in one place: a roundup of the Central Myeongdong Town mask library
When Olive Young Central Myeongdong Town opened, one of the most talked-about spots was its sheet-mask library. Here's what the press reported and what travellers are saying. Reported facts Around 800 sheet masks gathere
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