Ought to Ok-beauty merchandise have to come back from South Korea?

Korean skincare or “K-beauty” merchandise are extremely popular around the globe.

But as exports from South Korea hit $10.3bn (£7.7bn) last year, cosmetics corporations in different nations have launched their very own Ok-beauty ranges that aren’t Korean-made.

Does this blurring of the definition matter?

Ok-beauty merchandise first got here to worldwide consideration within the 2010s, a part of a wave of different Korean exports, comparable to Ok-pop and Ok-drama.

The Ok-beauty skincare regime may be very elaborate, involving as many as 10 totally different steps, every requiring a separate product. This caught the creativeness of individuals around the globe, and gross sales rose sharply.

Annual exports from South Korea elevated from $650m in 2011 to $4bn in 2017, in line with official figures, a sixfold rise in simply six years.

Recognising this large bounce in demand, cosmetics model Seoul Ceuticals was launched in 2017, named after the South Korean capital.

“We started to see this increase in growth in interest in K-beauty, and began developing a skincare brand to meet that demand… when we really saw it emerging in the US,” says Seoul Ceuticals’ director of retail relationship Ann Majeski.

“It has been extremely successful. We expect to do over $14m in sales in 2025. We’ve seen a global acceptance and demand for the K-beauty products. We’ve started selling in India, Latin America, Europe and Australia.”

But Seoul Ceuticals shouldn’t be a Korean firm. It is predicated within the US, the place it additionally producers all its merchandise.

The enterprise would not declare to be Korean, however it does say that it makes “real, authentic Korean skincare”.

That could sound like a contradiction, however the firm says it is not as a result of its substances are sourced from South Korea.

“I think we were a little more sensitive about it when we were first starting, because we wanted to be very transparent that the products are made in the US,” says Ms Majeski.

“[But] we source our ingredients in Korea… we wanted to be able to legitimately say we are a K-beauty brand.”

But not everybody would agree with this.

“The products should be manufactured by a Korean manufacturer,” says Seung Gu Kim, co-founder of Ok-beauty cosmetics agency Hwarangpoom.

He runs the enterprise along with his spouse Elisa Ahonpää-Ki. While they’re based mostly in Finland, all of their staff besides Elisa are Korean, and all their merchandise are made in South Korea.

“The most important thing that we both absolutely agree is that the brand should develop its concept, and ideas, and products with a Korean perspective,” says Mr Gu Kim.

“That can come through in the ingredients, the design. Or cultural elements, basically anything that clearly connects to the brands to Korea, or at least reflects a Korean influence.”

However, the couple do admit that the definition of Ok-beauty stays complicated.

“I guess it’s a very vague concept, because on the market you will find a lot of brands that are made by Koreans who live abroad,” says Ms Ahonpää-Ok.

“And then brands like Lancôme and Clinique manufacture their products in Korea and Japan, but then it doesn’t make those brands Japanese and Korean.”

There is presently no official definition of Ok-beauty. And there isn’t any protected designation of origin to defend it, like within the case of Champagne or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

And there isn’t any plan to set one up, in line with the Ok-beauty Industry Association, the one Ok-beauty commerce physique formally authorized by the South Korean authorities.

“We are currently more focused in promoting and expanding K-beauty,” says the organisation’s chairman Chang Nam Jang.

“While the trend is quite established in Asia, it is only just starting in Europe and the US, and we don’t want to throttle the growth by imposing any sanctions on them.”

However, the affiliation does have guidelines for its members – they have to be corporations which might be registered in South Korea, and their merchandise have to be formally examined and authorized by Korea Food & Drug Administration. That approval is required to be able to promote inside South Korea.

“If a product is developed in a way that suits the climate and environment of Korea, and is recognized as a viable product in the Korean market, then we would acknowledge it as K-beauty,” says Mr Nam Jang.

Hwarangpoom agrees with this definition, and has acquired approval from KFDA. And Seoul Ceuticals has additionally began the method to realize KFDA approval, to convey their merchandise to Korean customers.

With Ok-beauty exports from South Korea in 2024 20% higher than in 2023, there may be some huge cash to be made within the sector whether or not the corporations are homegrown or not.

In truth, South Korea is now the biggest exporter of beauty merchandise after France and the US.

However, this success has spawned counterfeiters.

Mark Lee is the CEO of MarqVision, a US-based enterprise helps corporations spot fakes and get them faraway from sale.

“For a major Korean beauty brand, which I cannot disclose, we recently conducted 29 test purchases across major US marketplaces,” he says. “Twenty six of them were fake. So that’s a 90% counterfeit rate.”

And in 2024 as an entire, Marqvision recognized $280m value of pretend Ok-beauty merchandise within the US market alone.

The excessive variety of counterfeits enormously annoyed Ok-beauty fan Gracie Tulio. “Shopping online for K-beauty was a really scary experience,” she says.

This led to London-based Ms Tulio launching PureSeoul in 2019, a Ok-beauty retail enterprise that sells genuine merchandise sourced immediately from Korean producers.

She says she will get clients who go to the store with suspected faux merchandise to test if they’re actual.

“Even our customers can be sometimes tempted by the lower price [of online fakes]. It’s so tempting for them just to give it a go and see, and nine times out of 10, it’s not real,” she says.