We have had South Korean pop, film, fashion and food, and now the latest trend is “K-beauty,” with sales of South Korean skincare brands taking off in the UK as consumers are seduced by products that promise to conjure a radiant complexion.
Britons are cutting back their spending in other areas, but are still chasing what the beauty industry describes as the “glass skin” look, with retailers reporting a rise in spending on high-end skincare.
Demand for upmarket lotions and serums is up 13 percent on last year, the data company Circana said.
Photo: Bloomberg
“Everyone is talking about the trend for glass skin,” Circana UK account director Emma Fishwick said of the South Korean beauty phenomenon.
Elixirs that promise “hydration” and “moisture” are even more sought after, with sales up 15 percent, she said.
As products from South Korean brands such as Cosrx, Beauty of Joseon and Laneige go viral on TikTok, UK stores are racing to keep up. Boots, the UK’s biggest beauty retailer, is expanding its K-beauty range, with Skin1004 and Round Lab among the names being added to its Web site and going into selected stores next month.
Alice Rafferty, Boots’ director of luxury beauty and cosmetics, said: “The industry is evolving quicker than ever before, with new brands emerging and reaching cult-like status in a matter of weeks.”
K-beauty is expected to follow South Korea’s music, film and TV exports in becoming a blockbuster.
Demand is climbing almost 10 percent a year, and K-beauty is predicted to be a US$18.3 billion business by 2030, according to data compiled by the market research organization Straits Research.
South Korean beauty standards include “blemish-free, glass-like skin, a youthful complexion and minimal makeup or the appearance of [minimal makeup],” said Maria Mukaranda, beauty editor at the comparison site Cosmetify, where searches for “Korean skincare” are up 83 percent year-on-year.
Many people still stick to the standard three-step skincare routine — cleanse, tone and moisturize, but the South Korean way can involve 10 steps or more.
These include applying sheet masks infused with ingredients such as mugwort and ginseng on a daily basis, and layering on “essences” containing supposed wonder ingredients such as snail mucin or slime.
“For me, it all started with the popularization of the 10-step Korean skincare routine,” Mukaranda said.
“It was around 2021 to 2022 when this exploded online, and many of us were exposed to skincare this refined and extensive for the first time,” she added.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to