<Korean News> Olive Young & Department Stores Strengthen ‘Beauty Experience’, Popular with 2030 Generation and Foreign Customers.

Recently, ‘K-beauty experience services’ such as makeup consultations and skin & scalp condition diagnoses are gaining popularity at Olive Young and department store cosmetics sections.

These free services offer not just product trials, but also one-on-one makeup consultations, hand & arm massages, skin & scalp type diagnoses, and more, making them highly popular among domestic 2030s and foreign customers.

<A customer undergoes a skin diagnosis at Olive Young Seongsu store>

CJ Olive Young has been hosting makeup experience events at its ‘Olive Young N Seongsu’ store, which opened in November last year.

Homecare classes and full makeup programs, which require prior reservations, are so popular that they fill up within one minute of booking opening. Skin & scalp consultations, which are only available for on-site reservations, also require a waiting time of over two hours.

The makeup program takes about 90 minutes, from applying basic skincare to creating a desired makeup concept. This service, typically priced around 100,000 KRW, is offered for free.

<Shinsegae Department Store Experience Event Site>

Due to the K-beauty craze, these events are also getting good responses from foreigners. The proportion of foreign customers for skin & scalp consultations exceeds 80%, with half of them coming from English-speaking countries. The color-mixing experience, where customers create their own palettes, is especially popular among foreign guests, with 40% of participants being Japanese.

＜Shinsegae Department Store Experience Event Site＞

Department stores are also enhancing their experience services to attract younger customers. Shinsegae Department Store held a ‘Beauty Festa’ from the 17th to 23rd, with over 20 cosmetics brands participating. Some reservations for makeup consultations from Prada Beauty, Makeup Forever, and hand & arm massages from Jo Malone London were fully booked early.

Lotte Department Store introduced the industry’s first one-on-one offline makeup reservation service, ‘Beauty Salon,’ in 2023. So far, 50,000 customers have used the Beauty Salon service.

A Lotte Department Store representative said, “More than half of Beauty Salon customers are from the 2030 generation, and we are receiving great feedback from young customers who want personalized experiences tailored to their tastes and styles. We plan to introduce more beauty services in the future.”