Beauty Costs: Why is Korean skincare so popular?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today’s episode of our Beauty Costs series, we’re looking at a part of the beauty world that’s worth over ten billion dollars.
K-beauty is one of South Korea’s biggest exports, and in the last couple of years it’s overtaken the United States in becoming the world’s second biggest exporter of beauty products.
So we head to Seoul, where reporter Nina Pasquini finds out why consumers there think it’s infiltrated the mainstream market.
We speak to the founder of one of the biggest K-beauty disruptor brands, Alicia Yoon from Peach & Lily. Sharon Ahn, beauty analyst from global consumer trend forecaster WGSN, tells us why K-beauty is set to become worth twenty billion dollars in the next few years.
South Korea has cultivated an era of cultural dominance, in music, acting and now in beauty. A lot of which has been accessible online, mainly through social media. Youtuber SSIN has over one a and a half million subscribers to her channel, she tells us what K-beauty means to her and her thoughts on its success.
Producer and presenter: Izzy Greenfield (Image: Beige Chuu South Korean beauty influencer / Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily. In today's episode of our Beauty Cost series, we're heading to South Korea to find out about one of their biggest exports, K Beauty. |
| 0:12.4 | Beauty and skincare is worth around $10 billion in South Korea. It's different from Western beauty because of the philosophy behind it. |
| 0:20.6 | It focuses on hydration, ingredients are milder and often they're more affordable. |
| 0:25.5 | I think you can get a lot of good Korean products for much less price than in the US. |
| 0:31.4 | In this episode, we'll hear more from consumers about why K Beauty is so popular. |
| 0:36.5 | We'll speak to one of the biggest brands in the business. |
| 0:39.3 | And a South Korean YouTuber tells us why it's helped her to gain millions of followers. |
| 0:44.3 | So it's all about new ideas and fast-paced trends. |
| 0:47.3 | They answer to people's needs. |
| 0:50.3 | They're capable of developing new technologies and studies so they can keep making better affordable products. |
| 0:58.3 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:03.5 | First things first, what's different about this kind of skin care and makeup? |
| 1:08.9 | How has it managed to go mainstream? |
| 1:10.5 | Truly, I think Korean beauty stands for the philosophy. this kind of skincare and makeup. How has it managed to go mainstream? |
| 1:16.9 | Truly, I think Korean beauty stands for the philosophy behind Korean skincare, which is really looking at skin very holistically, looking at your skin as the largest organ that it is, |
| 1:21.5 | and approaching it very gently with a long-term view in mind. And then also Korean beauty |
| 1:27.1 | is one of the most kind of innovative |
| 1:31.3 | parts of the industry I find. So I always say an industry is only as innovative as the |
| 1:37.8 | consumers are demanding. And Korean beauty consumers located in Korea are incredibly savvy, one of the most educated consumer bases |
| 1:46.4 | when it comes to skincare. So they're constantly pushing the industry forward saying, I want |
| 1:52.0 | something that's more potent but gentler, more eco-friendly and so forth. That's Alicia Yun. She's a |
| 1:58.2 | South Korean businesswoman based in New York City. |
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