No products in the cart.
For most of the past decade, one retailer decided what Korean beauty looked like on shelves: Olive Young. Now Musinsa, Coupang, Kurly and three of Korea’s largest department store groups have each built their own K-beauty platforms, the most recent wave of launches concentrated in the past two years, according to The Korea Times. Olive Young, the very retailer facing that new competition at home, is also the one bringing K-beauty to the UK through a Sephora partnership already confirmed for 2027.
For years, Olive Young was the only real gateway into Korean beauty, for domestic shoppers and for the tourists who built entire Seoul itineraries around its stores. That changed after two rival chains, GS Retail’s Lalavla and Lotte’s LOHB’s, both closed down in 2021. Since then, newer K-beauty brands have struggled to get shelf space at Olive Young or faced commission fees steep enough to push them toward other retailers instead.
Musinsa Beauty, run by Korea’s fashion retail giant, is drawing on the company’s expanding store network to assemble a serious luxury beauty lineup. NARS joined the platform on 10 July, according to the Korea Times, joining MAC and Miu Miu inside Musinsa Megastore Seongsu, the brand’s flagship in one of Seoul’s most fashion-forward neighbourhoods. Two more standalone Musinsa Beauty shops are due to open in Hongdae and Seongsu later this year.
Coupang and Kurly took different paths. Coupang’s beauty arm grew out of a category called ‘Rocket Luxury’ before becoming its own app, R.LUX, which now carries 40 brands, including Jo Malone London and Laura Mercier. Kurly, a grocery delivery platform better known for speed than skincare, launched Beauty Kurly with BLACKPINK’s Jennie as its face and now stocks 1,000 brands across skincare, makeup, haircare and body care.
Off Beauty works more like a discount outlet than a typical beauty retailer. It buys surplus stock directly from manufacturers, skips the usual distribution layers, and sells it on at discounts of up to 90 per cent. The chain had just over 30 stores in February 2026. The Korea Times puts the current count at 45, five months on, and its Seoul flagship at Gwangjang Market has reportedly been generating monthly sales in the range of $4 to 5 million. Off Beauty has also become a genuine second chance for smaller brands that couldn’t afford marketing budgets of their own. Delphea, a skincare label that was close to being discontinued, sold out completely after gaining traction through Off Beauty’s stores. One detail worth flagging: the Korea Times reports Off Beauty is planning its first store outside Korea, in Mongolia, this August. That hasn’t been confirmed anywhere else yet, so treat it as unverified for now.
Korea’s department stores have joined in too. Hyundai’s Coasis debuted at its Namyangju outlet last year and has since added three more locations in May and June. Lotte opened The Cast at its Cheongnyangni branch in April. Shinsegae’s Chicor now spans 22 locations across department stores and standalone road shops.
A Musinsa Beauty spokesperson told the Korea Times that having more platforms gives brands more ways to reach shoppers and gives shoppers sharper prices as a result. It’s difficult for a small beauty label to run its own store, so plugging into an existing retail network is often the only realistic route to a physical presence at all.
Olive Young already has a serious following outside Korea, with 4.53 million registered members on its global platform, and the UK sits alongside the US and Japan as one of its fastest-growing markets. This year Olive Young opened its first physical stores outside Korea, in Pasadena and Century City, Los Angeles, the first step in a wider international rollout.
A new partnership with Sephora will bring curated Olive Young sections to roughly 700 stores from this autumn, and while the US and parts of Asia go first, the UK is booked in for the same treatment in 2027. Mediheal, a Korean sheet mask brand, has been Olive Young’s best-selling brand in Korea for two years running and also topped Amazon’s sales charts over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a sign of how directly Korean retail trends are already shaping Western shopping habits.
Britain has become one of K-beauty’s fastest-growing overseas markets. K-beauty products sold in the UK are forecast to reach $14.4 billion by 2030, growing at roughly 9 percent a year, enough to put Britain ahead of the rest of Europe by then. Skincare in particular has settled into UK routines in a way that owes a lot to K-beauty habits, even among shoppers who’d never describe themselves as devoted to the category.
None of the newer Seoul platforms are likely to open UK stores of their own any time soon. But Sephora, the retailer bringing Olive Young west, is already expanding here well ahead of that 2027 date: it has opened more than a dozen UK stores, including its first in Belfast this year, and is targeting 20 nationwide by the end of 2026. What that means for anyone shopping for K-beauty in Britain is a wider spread of brands reaching Sephora, Olive Young Global, or whatever platform arrives next, priced by a Korean market where Olive Young finally has real competition.
Sephora hasn’t said whether its UK stores will carry any of Off Beauty’s discount pricing or Musinsa’s fashion-led curation alongside the core Olive Young assortment. But the 2027 timeline is set, and the beauty market it’s importing from looks nothing like it did even a year ago.
Stay inspired with exclusive brand features, luxury insights, and the latest in fine fashion and beauty — directly in your inbox.
