The month of December is here with this year’s first snow. The year 2023 is the year when the post-COVID-19 era begins in earnest, when mask mandates will begin to be lifted gradually and, thus, many changes are expected to take place in the beauty trends.
So, News Square will now give you a recap of the beauty trends of 2022 based on Amorepacific data along with an outlook for upcoming trends to watch for in 2023.

The innisfree Auto Eyebrow Pencil, which ranked as the second best-selling product in 2021, moved up a notch in the top-selling product list by members of Amorepacific’s integrated Beauty Point and snatched the number one spot in 2022. The innisfree Auto Eyebrow Pencil is Korea’s favorite eyebrow pencil, posting 18 million¹ units sold in cumulative sales since its release. The best things about this eyebrow pencil are that anyone, whether you are just beginning to put on makeup or are a professional, can draw effortlessly beautiful eyebrows, and that you can idealize your makeup with the range of colors that are available. This is why innisfree Auto Eyebrow Pencil is called the best eyebrow pencil of life by some enthusiastic users. At a reasonable price of just KRW 4,500, it is the must-have for Gen Z. Reviews on innisfree website have been flooded with 20,000+ comments full of heartfelt testimonials like, “This is the product of my life. I am a terrible drawer, but I can make perfect eyebrows with this,” and, “I have been using this product for years. I even buy my teenage daughters these pencils.”

What is noteworthy is that although those in their 20s and 30s make up the primary customer group, the number of customers in their 40s has also increased. The emerging customer group, are not Millennials or Gen Z, but rather the middle aged population in their 40s and 50s. Kim Nan-do, a professor at Seoul National University, said, “Generation X are making a big return,” defining them as the X-teen Generation. The X-teen Generation² are those from Generation X who were born in the 1970s, and were in their 20s in 1990s, enjoying the fruits of the economic and cultural boom. They are enthusiastic about investing in themselves and buying things for their children. They are keen on the latest trends, so they often pamper themselves with chic clothes, cosmetics, and hairdos, showing a similar consumption pattern with younger generations, who pursue unique styles, excitement, and cost-effectiveness. As their purchasing power has grown over the years, some people are even saying that brands can’t thrive if they fail to open the wallets of the X-teen Generation.

The person opening the wallet of X-teen generation though is, in fact, someone else. They are their children, Gen Z. The X-teen generation is made up of young parents who interact and communicate with their children. They sometimes go to a BTS concert, and or get recommendations from their children about products. Since they are spending more time with their children than the previous generation, they are heavily affected by the brands their children prefer and their children’s consumption patterns. You could say that Gen Z’s excellent search skills have a huge impact on the consumption patterns of the X-teen Generation. This is why we often come across comments like, “My daughter recommended this product to me, so I tried and loved it,” on online stores in recent months.

The secret behind the innisfree Auto Eyebrow Pencil being the top-selling product among Amorepacific’s integrated Beauty Point members was that it stole the hearts of the X-teen Generation by winning the recognition of Gen Z.

¹ Cumulative sales top 18 million since its first release. (As of Dec 2021.)
² https://www.chosun.com/national/national_general/2021/10/07/3GRLAM3GBVE6DAT5U4SLVSANAE

The best-selling product in 2022, based on sales by Amorepacific’s integrated Beauty Point members, is VITAL BEAUTIE Super Collagen. We need to take heed of the healthy pleasure trend, which has become the new thing in the health supplements market following the pandemic. While in the past, managing your health was equivalent to the agony of going on a strict diet and doing intense exercise, healthy pleasure focuses on the joy of eating delicious but healthy food and doing easy-to-do and fun workouts. Millennials and Gen Z upload photos of themselves exercising, eating salads, and taking health supplements with hashtags like #excercised_today, # beginner_weight_training, #health, #salad to communicate and share information with one another.
Now, there are more people looking for health supplements that help you consume nutritional ingredients more conveniently. According to a University Tomorrow Survey on People in their 20s, Millennials and Gen Z said that taking health supplements (31.7%) is the first thing they do to improve their health.

Healthy pleasure has brought a wave of change in the beauty trend. Whereas beauty products were the mainstay of the beauty industry, inner beauty is gaining industry attention for checking the boxes for both aesthetics and health. It aligns with Millennials and Gen Z’s value of putting emphasis on cosmetics that you apply on your skin, but also on improving skin health by consuming a balanced diet. The fact that VITAL BEAUTIE Super Collagen and VITAL BEAUTIE Ginseng Extract Ampoule hit the number 1 and number 3 spots in the top-selling product in 2022 list is proof of this trend.

Amorepacific VITAL BEAUTIE Super Collagen, which was launched in 2010, is something of a forerunner of inner beauty. This is the very first collagen to be recognized for its functionality by the Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (KMFDS). After drinking a bottle, the ingredients are absorbed instantly by your skin to replenish the collagen and improve inner dryness and tightness. After its release, the product started the collagen fever and broke the 100 million³ mark in cumulative sales.

This year, VITAL BEAUTIE Super Collagen won the Gold Award at Monde Selection, a globally renowned quality evaluation of consumer products. At Monde Selection, only those products that pass the blind test conducted by over 80 experts as well as a test from an accredited research center can be honored with an award. Super Collagen Essence earned particularly high scores for its reliable quality and scientific efficacy. Besides Super Collagen, VITAL BEAUTIE Ginseng Extract Ampoule and Meta Green Gold also received the Gold Award, while Revitalizing Ginsengberry and Deer Velvet Ampoule received the Silver Award. Thus, Amorepacific’s health and functional foods became recognized by a globally acclaimed institution for their excellent quality.

We look forward to seeing how Amorepacific’s inner beauty brand, VITAL BEAUTIE, will grow exponentially in the inner beauty market, as Amorepacific has engaged in the deep, extensive study of the beauty of the Korean people.

³ As of between 2010 and Mar 2022

The men’s beauty market is getting bigger with the grooming tribe growing in size. The grooming tribe refers to young men in their 20s and 30s, who splurge on fashion and beauty. The size of the men’s beauty market in Korea has already surpassed KRW 1.4 trillion, but Korea is not alone. The Chinese men’s cosmetics market is forecast to break the KRW 3.9 trillion mark, and the North American market is also seeing rapid growth. Men’s beauty influencers, like Jeffree Star, Kim Kisoo, and Leo J, who introduce daily makeup styles and offer reviews on makeup products have also started to appear.

The 2020 Open Survey⁵ on the men’s grooming trend report says that one out of every two men takes care of their skin and buys skin products once every two months from both online and offline channels. Unlike in the past when they received skincare products as gifts or bought them indirectly, they are now choosing and buying their own products depending on their skin trouble and taste. Which product then would be the most popular product for men in their 20s and 30s in 2022?

Based on the members of Amorepacific’s integrated Beauty Point, innisfree Volcanic Pore BHA Cleansing Foam was the best-selling skin product for men. It demonstrates well the fact that the biggest skin trouble for men⁶ is acne and other skin concerns (58.6%) and that oily skin (58.2%) is the second biggest point of skin trouble.
innisfree Volcanic Pore BHA Cleansing Foam is a deep cleansing foam for pores that takes care of sebum with a formula that is made using Jeju’s volcanic rocks and BHA. Customers are leaving comments including, “I have been using this for over five years, and I am satisfied every time. The silky foam removes oil, debris, and dirt well,” and, “Even my picky younger brother loves it. My whole family is using it now!”

The men’s beauty market will open up plenty of opportunities as long as you are able to identify the male consumers’ concerns and needs that are becoming increasingly segmented.

⁴ www.hankyung.com/life/article/201901043388k
⁵ Based on answers from 750 Korean men aged 20 to 49.
⁶ Based on answers from 500 men aged 20 to 39 in a survey by Macromill Embrain, a research firm.

There is an Amorepacific product that has been much beloved for 25 years since its release in 1997. It is the famous Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Serum. It has been sold so consistently that there is even a saying, “You may have never used it, but everyone one who has used it has used it more than once.” This is the top-selling product with a new bottle sold every 10 second⁷ worldwide, and more than 400,000 customers⁸ have bought this product 10 times or more.

Based on the data on members of Amorepacific’s integrated Beauty Point, Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Serum ranked in the first place in the list of products with the highest repurchase ratio for two consecutive years in 2021 and 2022. What could the cause of this widespread popularity be?

Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Serum made the headlines when it was first rolled out. It is not only made of traditional Korean medicine that had previously only been used for medical purposes, but also opened up a new market for boosting essences that accelerate the activation of effective agents in the next step of skincare routine by applying them first thing after washing the face.

How then has Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Serum evolved over the years? The second generation essence came out with an instant absorption mechanism following after the successful launching of the first generation. Five years later, the third generation essence was released with enhanced hydration. The fifth generation essence now includes JAUM Activator^TM that maximizes the anti-aging effects. Through clinical trial, it was proven that Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Serum improves the skin health index by 146% after eight weeks of use⁹ . In this way, Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Serum has continued to mature having now gone through five renewals over the past 25 years fascinating numerous women from the moment it was released.

The reason so many customers choose Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Serum again even today is probably because it has introduced enhanced technology with improved efficacy time and time again.

⁷ Based on the global sell-in data from 2021.
⁸ Based on the Amorepacific data on Korean customers from 1997-2021.
⁹ Testing agency: REMOTION, Subjects: 539 women from Korea, China, Singapore, and North America, Trial period: Sep-Nov 2019, Skin Youth Index: A total anti-aging index that intuitively shows Sulwhasoo’s skin improvement based on six indexes of skin aging (hydration/radiance/translucency/wrinkle reduction/brightness/skin barrier) (by setting the skin status before improvement as 100).

HERA BLACK CUSHION has topped the list of top-selling products among Amorepacific employees. BLACK CUSHION has established itself as the bestseller of HERA since it was launched in 2017 thanks to its unrivalled ability to cover imperfections both smoothly and seamlessly. The lightweight formula is applied thinly across the skin, leaving flawless skin that stays fresh even after wearing a face mask. HERA has also maintained the No.1 position on the bestselling cushion brand list for five consecutive years. It goes without saying that consumers are satisfied with HERA BLACK CUSHION and that makeup experts readily buy it with confidence, being professionals who are not easily satisfied even with products of acceptable quality.

BLACK CUSHION went through a renewal in 2021. The skin tones of 2,000 Asian women were studied and based on the results, shades were developed that were customized to Asian women. BLACK CUSHION now comes in nine different shades that best reveal the natural skin tone.
The package is designed with a vibrant black color and a delicate gold symbol of HERA CUSHION, enhancing their value as a collectible.

The color makeup market is being invigorated with the anticipation that the indoor mask mandate will soon be lifted. Cushion and lipstick sales, in particular, have skyrocketed by 70% and 50%, respectively¹⁰ . For those who haven’t found the right cushion for their skin, HERA BLACK CUSHION will be a great choice, proven by cosmetics experts and numerous customers.

¹⁰ http://news.heraldcorp.com/view.php?ud=20220531000812

Today, we looked through the beauty trends of 2022.
We hope that you can catch the new trends faster than anybody else and get ready for the new year.