How Far Can the K-beauty Craze Go?

K-beauty is having a strong second act and its impact on the U.S. beauty market is only expected to become more significant.

Now, as the U.S. becomes the biggest export market for K-beauty, with retail giant Olive Young opening its own freestanding stores as well as partnering with Sephora on a curated assortment and Western brands launching their own takes on Korean products, analysts are asking, just how big can it become?

“K-beauty has evolved from being a discovery-driven niche into a meaningful force in the global beauty market,” said Jeff Lindquist, a partner in Boston Consulting Group’s New York office.

“A few years ago, many Western consumers experienced it as something novel — unusual ingredients, elaborate routines or products they found online. Today, it is increasingly part of the mainstream beauty ecosystem,” Lindquist continued. “Korean cosmetics exports reached a record in 2025, and the U.S. is now Korea’s largest beauty export market. That tells you this is no longer simply a cultural trend; it has become a scaled commercial phenomenon.”

NIQ data showed that 29 percent of U.S. households are purchasing K-beauty in a given year, up from 23 percent a year ago and 19.7 percent two years ago. Its research found that K-beauty buyers are spending $1,234 per year on total beauty and personal care, $280 more than the average buyer.

“We’re getting pretty mainstream with K-beauty,” said Anna Mayo, a beauty analyst at NIQ. “The opportunity areas that I see for K-beauty is that most of those sales are happening either at Amazon, TikTok Shop, Costco a little bit, Sephora or Ulta, but it really hasn’t penetrated more mass retailing yet.

“If we look at Target, Walmart, the drugstore channel,” Mayo continued, “they haven’t expanded their assortment of K-beauty, so once that happens, and I’m sure it is happening soon, we’ll see that penetration just continue to grow even faster.”

Indeed, the mass juggernaut is starting to happen. Unveiling details for its Beauty Studio in late August, Target Corp. is using the space to dive deeper into the K-beauty craze, with brands like Eqqualberry, Amuse, Kaja, Rom&nd, Dr.Melaxin, Purito Seoul and Sungboon Editor.

Old Navy is also bringing in some K-beauty stock keeping units as part of its beauty assortment that is being rolled out nationwide, and Walmart is backing trending brands like Medicube.

“The price of these brands puts them squarely up against mass so it’s feeling quite mainstream to me,” said Cassie Cowman, cofounder of beauty consultancy View From 32. “Anua has an incredible amount of volume in Ulta. They’re holding their own.”

Wendy Liebmann, CEO of WSL Strategic Retail, agrees. “In the last four or five years, it has become part of the beauty vernacular, not just from the industry itself, but from a shopper perspective,” she said. “I do think that we see it across the board, from the drugstores to the Walmarts and Targets to the department stores.”

That penetration is expected to increase. Sephora’s collaboration with Olive Young will see 19 new brands in 500 Sephora stores in the U.S. and sephora.com, with expansion planned across key global markets. The participating brands include Cell Fusion C, Rejuran, Thome, Wellage and Whipped, among others. Prices range from $4 to $69 for skin care and up to $299 for devices.

And during a second-quarter earnings call with analysts Thursday, Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman reported that K-beauty momentum continued, with robust double-digit growth in category sales compared to the same period last year.

On a category level, according to NIQ, facial skin care dominates with 84 percent of sales, but hair care is the fastest growing.

Mayo said: “We see a lot of momentum right now in hair and body care specifically. I am watching to see if that can continue. Brands like Dr. Groot in hair care are great examples. Does that expand more broadly? And then cosmetics are about 7 percent of sales right now for beauty in the U.S. so can they increase that as well?”

At the same time that K-beauty exports are arriving in the U.S. at a breakneck speed, Western companies are offering their own takes such as Yves Saint Laurent Beauté Skin Affair Soft Glow Cushion Foundation, $49, L’Oréal Infallible Cushion Foundation, $19.99, Refy Water Blush Liquid Cushion with Ceramides, $24, and Rhode Glazing Milk Hydrating Ceramide Facial Essence, $32, to name a few.

Lindquist said: “The influence is very significant, but increasingly it is becoming invisible. The ultimate sign that an innovation has succeeded is when consumers stop thinking about where it originated.

“I wouldn’t describe this as Western companies simply copying Korean products,” he continued. “It is more fundamental than that: some of the design principles that made K-beauty successful are influencing how the entire industry thinks about innovation.”

In terms of the competitive landscape surrounding K-beauty and Western brands, Cowman argues that where the latter struggles to compete is the value proposition that the Korean brands are delivering fast.

“You can get a product turned around in three months with some of these brands, and then they’re doing it at price points that other brands are really struggling to match,” she said. “So that, to me, is a big piece of how K-beauty has influenced the broader industry because it’s created a pressure to sharpen your price value proposition. It’s completely disrupted skin care, and it’s starting in makeup and hair care.”

Larissa Jensen, global beauty industry adviser at Circana, added that while K-beauty is certainly influencing the mainstream, she would stop short of saying that it’s become mainstream.

“It’s huge on TikTok Shop. If we look at skin care, seven of the top 10 brands in that category on TikTok Shop are K-beauty brands. But TikTok Shop is a small percentage of overall beauty sales.”

What could be a game-changer, she believes, is the type of partnerships that are beginning to happen such as the one between Sephora and Olive Young, which kicked off with a special pop-up at the U.S. retailer’s Times Square store.

In addition to its partnership with Sephora, Olive Young opened its first freestanding door in the U.S. earlier this year, an 8,647-square-foot flagship in Pasadena, Calif., that stocks about 400 brands and 5,000 products, with a second Los Angeles location at Westfield Century City. According to Olive Young, the California stores have exceeded expectations, welcoming an average of more than 2,000 visitors per day combined.

“If you think about the different ways that they can come to market, very often, they’re very small brands. So, as a brand growing globally and having that expansion, that’s very expensive,” said Jensen. “What could be the game changer this time, and we’re already starting to see it to a degree is partnerships. If you think about Sephora/Olive Young, that’s where the potential could be in terms of creating those opportunities for whether it’s an acquisition or a joint product development, or a partnership or whatever. It’s companies that can combine the innovation capabilities of K-beauty and the scale and distribution that you see from the big brands, the mainstream brands. That’s what the sweet spot could be.”