First Gen KBeauty Brands' Re-found Popularity

 

 

 

[COSMETICS DESIGN ASIA] First saw this posted on Odile's IG stories, who's heavily quoted in the article. Early ABers will recognize the brands (Etude, Nature Republic, SKINFOOD, TONYMOLY) mentioned as "cool again". CDA credits the THAAD Missile Crisis as one of the reasons these brands fell out of favor, but doesn't mention the extremely heavy bombardment, hinging on annoying KBeauty SMEs figuring out social media marketing which the older KBeauty brands did not lean into quite as...vigorously.

SKINFOOD had quite a few products topping major popular ranking sites like Glowpick, Hwahae, Powder Room and Olive Young and it seems on track in 2023 (if you're reading this beyond 2023, I don't think the web version of Powder Room lets you see past years).

Not mentioned in the article: MISSHA. Able C&C (Missha's parent company) posted a net profit of KRW1.1 billion in Q1 of 2023 after 5 years of consecutive losses (which had a rough few years culminating in a bidding war this year).

Musings

I didn't realize MISSHA's turnaround was attributed to a wave in South Korea; not Elizabeth Olsen😂

 

Promo pic from MisshaUS

Oddly enough, their global ambassador is not on their main website - it has her face for the "Film" section, but not her film 🤨