Between Korea’s powerhouse magnificence retailer Olive Young partnering with Sephora and Korean division retailer Shinsegae unveiling its three-month Hyper Ground pop-up in New York Metropolis, the stateside Okay-beauty growth is exhibiting no indicators of slowing down. Within the race to faucet into the U.S. market’s seemingly insatiable urge for food for all issues Okay-beauty, some Korean manufacturers are enlisting Muskat Beauty Inc. — a Los Angeles-based Okay-beauty curator and distributor based in 2025 — to assist place them on main retail gamers’ radars.
Whereas it might really feel like a brand new Okay-beauty model finds a house on an American magnificence retailer’s cabinets every single day, there’s a calculated playbook behind this international enlargement. In any case, manufacturers can not merely copy-and-paste their Korea-specific retail methods onto the U.S. market. That is the place Muskat is available in: Founder Daniella Jung and her staff of 25 workers mastermind Okay-beauty manufacturers’ go-to-market methods throughout the nation.
Because the North American working arm of Jung’s Seoul-based distribution firm Most Inc., which launched in 2019, Muskat works with manufacturers reminiscent of Biodance, Celimax, CosRX, Purito Seoul, Torriden, VT Cosmetics and NuTexture, amongst others. It’s on observe to achieve $60 million in income this 12 months.
Photograph: Esther Kim/Courtesy of Muskat Magnificence Inc.
Earlier than serving to form America’s Okay-beauty panorama, Jung started her profession as a requirement forecaster for Apple and later joined Amazon to recruit Korean magnificence manufacturers onto its web site. However again then, roughly a decade in the past, many Korean manufacturers have been targeted on increasing to China reasonably than the U.S.
“I nonetheless do not forget that I needed to make 200 chilly calls convincing [brands], ‘it’s a must to promote on Amazon,'” Jung tells Fashionista. “Now, everyone is promoting on Amazon and I work with a variety of magnificence manufacturers which might be energetic on Amazon. However then, I noticed an enormous, large alternative [for] Korean magnificence for U.S. shoppers.”
Related: Sephora’s Olive Young Partnership Will Debut With 19 K-Beauty Brands
By way of Muskat, Jung works carefully with retailers like Costco, Goal and Sephora. Simply as every retailer has a distinct core demographic, they’re additionally trying to find completely different qualities within the Okay-beauty manufacturers they inventory. Costco’s international enterprise mannequin is especially distinctive because it doesn’t purchase manufacturers, however reasonably on a product foundation: It purchases solely a choose variety of best-selling SKUs reasonably than stocking a whole product line. (This technique additionally enabled the retailer a better entry level to grow to be an early adopter of the Okay-beauty class.)
At Sephora, patrons are pursuing distinctive model tales, attention-grabbing substances and a transparent founder philosophy. (“That’s not a dialogue that I’ve with Costco patrons,” Jung says.) Take Biodance, for instance: The skin-care model is stocked at each Costco and Sephora, with the previous providing 24-pack containers of the model’s widespread hydrogel masks and the latter supplying a broader vary of SKUs.
Photograph: Courtesy of Muskat Magnificence Inc.
Goal consumers are additionally searching for a novel product at a mass-market value, particularly on the heels of its current Target Beauty Studio launch, which presents a curated assortment from greater than 90 status rising and international manufacturers. This September, Muskat helped safe Purito Seoul and Aromatica’s slots in Goal Magnificence Studio. Purito Seoul is a skin-care model greatest identified for its moisturizers (see: the Mighty Bamboo Panthenol Cream and the Oat in Calming Gel Cream), and its Goal entrance has been a very long time coming. “Purito Seoul is without doubt one of the manufacturers that has been investing a variety of advertising and marketing into the worldwide market reasonably than [the] Korean market,” Jung says.
Aromatica stands aside as the only real Korean hair-care model within the Goal Magnificence Studio lineup, bringing greater than 20 years of scalp experience to the U.S. retailer. “They’re truly dominating that [scalp-care] class,” she notes, including that the model’s Rosemary Root Enhancer and Rosemary Scalp Scaling Shampoo have gotten “cult-favorite hair-care merchandise in Korea and [the] international market.”
Photograph: Courtesy of Muskat Magnificence Inc.
Regardless of these retailers’ completely different buyer bases, they’re all eyeing one widespread attribute: virality. “Today, patrons really need comparable issues from Okay-beauty, which is virality, as a result of shoppers uncover manufacturers on social media after which they discover [them] in a retail retailer,” Jung explains. Due to this, Jung is searching for rising social media conversations across the manufacturers that she works with, noting, “it’s not one thing that we are able to create in a brief time period.” U.S. retailers need to see Okay-beauty manufacturers’ Amazon rankings and TikTok metrics earlier than carving out area on a retailer’s cabinets, which means that they should set up momentum earlier than Muskat steps in.
“Whenever you work with Goal, Ulta [or] Sephora, you might be working with specialists and you might be truly mainly launching your merchandise for two,000, 5,000, 6,000 doorways, which doesn’t occur in Korea,” Jung says. “So this scale requires advertising and marketing capability and operational excellence and value management.”
Choosing the proper retailer for a Korean model taking its first steps into the U.S. is a significant a part of Muskat’s go-to-market technique. Launching into the most important U.S. retailer doable might not at all times be the best method for a model trying to hook American magnificence shoppers. “There’s an order of the retail that it is advisable go once you develop your model into the U.S.,” Jung says, including that Muskat wouldn’t advocate initially launching into Costco or Walmart based mostly on their promotion methods.
Photograph: Nina Fernandez/Courtesy of Muskat Photograph: Courtesy of Muskat Magnificence Inc.Magnificence Inc.
Though U.S. and Korean shoppers share a love for high-quality skincare, their respective magnificence retail landscapes are noticeably completely different. Olive Younger dominates Korea’s magnificence market with greater than 1,350 shops within the nation, whereas the U.S. is segmented into specialty retailers (Sephora and Ulta Magnificence) and massive field shops (Goal, Walmart, Costco). Nonetheless, one of many greatest variations between the 2 international locations is their magnificence promotion methods. In Korea, Jung notes that there are frequent reductions, together with providing merchandise at 50% off, BOGO offers or items with buy. However, within the U.S., “defending the model fairness by controlling the retail value is pretty necessary,” she explains.
“I at all times work with a model and advise them to not run heavy promotions as a result of each Korean model is educated that low cost[s] [are] one of many environment friendly instruments to develop the model, however within the U.S. it’s a must to use it in a distinct and sensible method,” Jung continues. In apply, this intentional discounting seems like collaborating in semi-annual gross sales (i.e. the Sephora Financial savings Occasion) or holiday-specific promotions (reminiscent of Black Friday).
Because the U.S. market continues to welcome Okay-beauty manufacturers with open arms, Muskat stands other than different distributors as an organization “rooted in Korea” managing day-to-day operations from its L.A. workplace. It goals to selectively scale the variety of manufacturers it really works with, serving as a guide on strategic U.S. expansions for Korean labels and an skilled curator for retailers. However, Jung isn’t involved in remodeling Muskat right into a Okay-beauty conglomerate; As an alternative, she needs her firm to keep up its “boutique agency mentality.”
“We don’t need to work with 100 completely different manufacturers and low cost them and work with all of the retailers, however we need to work as an adviser for the model,” Jung says. “We additionally need to grow to be a number of retailers’ greatest pal on the subject of Korean magnificence curation.”
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