20 TUTORIAL
How to formulate K-Beauty for the European market
n Lorna Radford – Enkos Developments, UK
), and the agility with which Korean brands bring new ideas to the market. Cosmetic product development in Korea is fast-paced and the market is dominated by huge companies with large budgets that can throw manpower and money at projects to turn them around very quickly. South Korean culture strongly focuses on hard work and the mind-set to exceed expectations. There is a general can-do attitude and a belief that anything is possible if enough time and money is invested. It is therefore no surprise that Korea keeps launching new exciting and
Korean Beauty is just one part of ‘Hallyu’, the cultural wave of pop music (K-Pop), TV shows (K-Drama) and cosmetics (K-Beauty) from South Korea that is taking the world by storm. K-Beauty is regularly in the global personal care spotlight these days, with ongoing interest in the innovative formulations and packaging, the culture of taking time to care for your skin (exemplified by the renowned Korean 10-step skin care routine1
PERSONAL CARE EUROPE
interesting products that we have not seen or conceived before in the West. From cushion compacts to sleeping packs to the latest developments in sheet mask technology, it is now quite commonplace to see novel concepts from Korea make their way over to Europe. Quite a few Korean brands are now directly available in Europe due to companies such as Sephora offering a dedicated Korean Skin Care section. Some Korean brands are also becoming more global due to multinational companies investing in them, for example Estée Lauder buying a stake in Dr. Jart+2 3CE.3
and L’Oréal’s recent acquisition of
Over the past few years, several Western brands with an emphasis on K-Beauty have appeared on the market – for example, it would be easy to believe that the Korean beauty range ‘Oh K!’ is based in South Korea when in fact it belongs to the UK company NPW Gifts.4
In a less extreme scenario, a lot of European brands are also
starting to reference Korean skin care products as benchmarks for texture, performance and/or packaging when looking to develop new formulations for their product portfolio. In this case, it might not be obvious to the consumer that the brand was inspired by Korean products; however, for the team behind the product development it poses the key question of how to actually formulate K-Beauty inspired products for the European market. The task is not necessarily as simple as it may first seem. Firstly the cosmetic regulations for both regions must be considered. Korean and European cosmetic legislation differs in a number of areas; in Europe products must comply with European Cosmetic Regulations EC1223/2009 whereas in South Korea products must meet the terms of the Cosmetic Act, which is governed by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS).5 To give one example, European legislation provides a single definition for a cosmetic
September 2018
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