South Korea shakes up the beauty market
The sheet mask is to the beauty market what K-pop is to music: another sign of South Korea's soft power. This fabric mask soaked in dermo-cosmetic active ingredients, manufactured by Torriden and other South Korean manufacturers, is, by summer 2025, one of the best-selling items in French beauty stores. Just like Beauty of Joseon sunscreens and Cosrx snail slime or ginseng serums.
Retailers are flocking to these trendy brands, whose products with natural ingredients are heavily promoted on TikTok and Instagram. Sephora has opened its shelves to "around ten South Korean brands since listing Laneige products in 2019," explains Juliette Caloin, vice president of merchandising Europe and purchasing director for the LVMH brand. Amazon devotes entire pages to the subject.
In France, Printemps and Monoprix have just opened up to "K-Beauty", the former with a temporary space within the department store on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris, bringing together 13 brands, the latter by offering in 100 of its 350 stores operated in France the most famous products from Beauty of Joseon or Cosrx, a subsidiary of the giant Amore Pacific. In addition, the Miin chain of boutiques, created in 2014 in Barcelona by a Chinese entrepreneur and a Swiss investor, is spreading its wings in France: in eleven years, 43 boutiques have opened their doors in Europe, including two in Paris, in spring 2025, which sell only Korean brands. "The potential is around 200 boutiques on the European continent" , assures the co-founder of Miin, Lilin Yang.
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Le Monde