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Skin, K-beauty, Korea trips and the beauty industry — ask and share
Korea just passed a law to make K-beauty the world's No. 1 cosmetics industry
Korea has a new law aimed squarely at beauty. The Act on the Promotion and Support of the Cosmetics Industry was promulgated on September 15, 2026, and the government says a cross-ministry strategy follows this year. Wha
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 0Rare 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
0 1Olive Young is opening in California. When will Spanish speakers get one?
Olive Young, Korea's biggest beauty chain (founded in Seoul in 1999, with more than 1,200 stores), announced that its first US store would open in Southern California in the first half of 2026, with Pasadena as the debut
0 0Olive Young Awards 2025: the makeup winners in one list
Olive Young's year-end awards are one of the most watched "what is Korea actually buying" signals. A recap of the 2025 edition lists winners across skincare, makeup and a few extra sections. On the makeup side, the recap
0 0What do you restock most on a K-beauty haul?
Whether you shop in Seoul or order online, most hauls end up being repurchases, not new discoveries. Beauty forums often say the same few categories disappear fastest. Usual suspects: Sunscreen: used daily, in generous a
Poll
Which category do you restock most often?
Pick one to see the results
0 0Beauty 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 0Buy K-beauty in Seoul or order cross-border at home — how big is the gap?
A debate that comes up constantly in Chinese-speaking K-beauty groups: is it really cheaper to buy in Korea than on cross-border shopping platforms back home? The usual arguments: Korean stores often run 1+1 deals and bo
0 0On 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
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 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 0Dupe culture, K-beauty edition: smart shopping or just the same factory?
Dupe threads are some of the busiest posts on beauty forums right now. Someone finds a cheaper product that feels like a cult favourite, and the comments explode. In K-beauty the debate has an extra twist. Korea has larg
0 0Which K-beauty category carried you through 2026? Vote
Three months left in the year. Looking at @cosme rankings and Mega Wari cart reveals, 2026 was full of talking points: PDRN mists, toner pads, soft matte lips and more. So we want to know: which K-beauty category did you
Poll
Which K-beauty category did you rely on most in 2026?
Pick one to see the results
0 0Do you trust K-beauty rankings, or do they just make things viral?
Real-time rankings, award shelves and "No. 1" stickers are everywhere in Korean beauty retail. Some shoppers treat them as a shortcut. Others think they feed a loop: a product ranks, gets more shelf space, sells more, ra
0 0Nonfiction Seongsu: the fragrance flagship inside the K-beauty cluster
Nonfiction is a lifestyle beauty brand built around fragrance and body care, and its Seongsu store sits inside what a 2026 shopping guide calls Seongsu's K-beauty cluster, alongside Olive Young N, Amore Seongsu and Tambu
0 0How do you decide if a viral K-beauty product is worth buying?
Every few weeks a Korean product blows up on short-video feeds and sells out. Some turn into long-term favorites. Others end up half-used in a drawer. Questions people on beauty forums say they ask first: What problem do
0 0'Tanmaxxing' is trending on TikTok. Dermatologists are not fans
While K-beauty feeds are full of SPF reapplication hacks, another corner of TikTok is doing the opposite. Tanmaxxing means deliberately maximising sun exposure to get as dark as possible. What the trend involves, per a J
0 0Which beauty trend should we retire before 2027?
Time for a friendly vote. Some trends from the last couple of years were fun, some were useful, and some we are ready to see leave the feed. The candidates people complain about most on beauty forums: Shelfie flexing: fi
Poll
Which trend should leave our feeds first?
Pick one to see the results
0 0CHICOR Gangnam Station: inside Shinsegae's hyper-personalized beauty flagship
One minute's walk from Exit 11 of Gangnam Station, on the first floor of 408 Gangnam-daero, Shinsegae's beauty-edit chain CHICOR opened a roughly 130-pyeong (about 430 square meter) flagship on June 27, 2025. It replaced
0 0Lines around the block for a men's beauty popup: the numbers behind it
When CJ Olive Young opened its first Men's Beauty popup in Seoul, the turnout surprised a lot of people. The Korea Times put numbers on it. From the report: Over 12,000 visitors in 10 days (Aug. 30 to Sept. 8, 2024), wit
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