Why are Indian skincare brands betting on Korean-inspired formulations?

With the rise in the marketability of K-beauty across the globe, founders and formulators of homegrown brands are marching towards Korea to engineer their products

A handful of Korean beauty products in every beauty nerd’s vanity isn’t startling today, albeit, things were different a couple of years ago when K-beauty hadn’t fully arrived on Indian shores. According to a Statista report, the adulation of K-beauty has only been on the rise between 2018 and 2022. A Financial Expressarticle revealed that as per a survey conducted by Rakuten Insight in 2019, about 35 per cent of Indian women stated that their skincare routine consists of 25 per cent K-beauty products. Thanks to the mostly informative content created by beauty gurus and influencers alike, K-beauty has garnered a chunk of fandom in the Indian market, creating a spurt in the category’s boom. 

Be it in response to the trend or owing to the truly ingenious rendition of Korean skincare products, Indian beauty brands have left no stone unturned to jump on the bandwagon and offer products that are either made in Korea or create formulations that mimic the efficacy of K-beauty. We speak to founders of such brands, who let us in on what developing their product in Korea means to their business.

What makes K-beauty so covetable?

“In my early years, I struggled to find effective solutions for my persistent acne issues. I turned to doctor-recommended acne treatments, but they failed to provide a long-term fix. I was travelling in the US and someone recommended that I try a few Korean skincare products. Within three months, my skin felt so much healthier and my acne issues were behind me,” says Anirudh Kastia, founder of homegrown skincare brand Put Simply, as he shares his first-hand experience of the power of K-beauty. Over six million posts feature the hashtag #KBeauty on Instagram, while the numbers on TikTok are mind-boggling—over 5.9 billion views, to be precise. But it’s not just the virality of K-beauty on social media that has led to its amplification, its potency and skin-friendliness sets it apart from its fellow contenders.

For Gen-Z-favourite beauty brand d’you’s founder, Shamika Haldipurkar, K-beauty, or even J-beauty (beauty from Japan), pass off as examples of marketing efforts done right. “If you want to really understand why the advent of Korean skincare occurred in the West, it is because skincare as a practice from a functionality and innovation perspective has been a part of the East Asian countries way before that made their way into the US or India, for that matter.” She recollects reading a report about eight years ago which revealed that Korea, as a country, was 12 years ahead of the globe in terms of skincare innovations. “I don’t know if that’s still the case,” says Haldipurkar. “However, Korea has invested a lot of money in newer science, technologies and R&D (research and development) for over three decades now. For them [Koreans] creating and trading skincare formulations is similar to what spices are for India—that’s how creative it is there.”

Talking about its global appreciation, she says, “I assume that the demand for skincare was much more in Korea, before the ritual [of skincare] even became a thing across the world. And, as people from Korea migrated to places like Canada, US and other parts of the West, their skincare culture moved along with them, creating a demand for K-beauty in the West.” 

For Dr Kiran Sethi, New Delhi-based dermatologist and author of Skin Sense too, K-beauty appears to be more of a trend than something substantial. “Multi-active and multi-ingredient skincare routines exist around the world today,” she says. However, one can’t deny the role of K-beauty’s upsurge in mainstreaming elaborate skincare regimens and augmenting consumer interest in the subject. “One of the main reasons for me to bet on K-beauty is the emphasis on natural and gentle ingredients such as Cica, green tea, rice water, and ginseng that are effective in improving the skin's health in the long term and have been used for centuries in Korean traditional medicine too,” affirms Kastia.

Why are Indian brands resorting to Korea?

The Indian beauty market is thriving like never before, with most brands running a successful enterprise, courtesy of the new-age, curious consumer. From Korean beauty brands like The Face Shop and AMORE PACIFIC’s much-loved labels like Innisfree, Laneige and Sulwhasoo to Indian brands like Pilgrim and Put Simply, there’s no dearth of skincare houses making Korean formulations accessible to the Indian consumer. Online marketplaces like Nykaa, Tira and BeautyBarn are also bringing niche K-beauty products from brands such as isntree, Some By Mi, Thank You Farmer and COSRX to India. With all of them doing exceptionally well, it’s no surprise that brands like Put Simply and d’you reached Korea to bring their products to life, but what encouraged the founders to do so is far away from just the monetary profit.

“Korean skincare companies invest heavily in research and development, creating  advanced formulations that use cutting-edge technologies to deliver active ingredients [that work] deep into the skin,” says Kastia, echoing Haldipurkar’s words. “For example, many Korean skincare products use microencapsulation technology to protect active ingredients from degradation and increase their efficacy,” he adds. “The key differentiating factor that I’ve noticed between formulations made in Korea and those made in India is the ‘cosmetic elegance’ that the former boast,” expresses Haldipurkar. “The focus on how a product wears and feels (gentle, hydrating and soothing formulations are the cornerstone of Korean skincare) as well as the technological advancements that they have. Key innovations pertaining to skin microbiome or lamellar technology are all coming from Korea; you may see a Western brand offering it, but you won’t know that they are most likely formulated in Korea,” she adds, highlighting how the R&D wings are robust in Korea, and keep receiving funds to do better. “The focus on the quality of ingredients in Korean skincare has helped to establish a reputation for effectiveness and safety in the global beauty industry,” infers Kastia. 

Is the Indian manufacturing setup lacking something?

Sethi believes that Indian manufacturing has stepped up quite a bit because huge multinational companies invest here now, plus, we export too. “It’s not unfavourable to manufacture here per se, you just have to find the right place,” she says. “Some actives may not exist here [in India] and the market is more developed there [Korea], but usually there is no particular reason to manufacture in Korea if you have chosen the right factory and have a strong QC team and testing structure in place in India.” However, Kastia has a different opinion based on his experience. “Yes, the skincare manufacturing landscape in India is very different. There is a lack of scale [in skincare manufacturing] which results in weaker budgets getting invested into R&D and creating Intellectual Property Rights. Also, the sourcing, packaging and quality control standards do not yet meet the global standards,” he shares.

Haldipurkar has already established the fact that Koreans are the conceivers of unparalleled technologies in the world of beauty—skincare, particularly. “I can count on one hand the number of manufacturers in India who have the intention or motivation to work on innovative formulations; most work on stock formulas. I have tried working with Indian manufacturers also, but haven’t been satisfied with the results when compared to my experience in Korea,” says Haldipurkar.

“The biggest gap is technology, in my opinion. I wouldn’t have been able to create IMD (In My Defence) in India because it involves a patented dispersion technology, available only in Korea, which, by the way, renders the product its USP—a high percentage of ceramides in a lightweight formulation,” shares the founder of d’you, elaborating on ‘cosmetic elegance’. The Korean manufacturing space is also very founder-friendly when it comes to systems and processes, mentions Haldipurkar. 

How do ‘Made in Korea’ products elevate the experience?

According to Sethi, the positive of K-beauty’s virality is that it teaches that skincare is necessary. “Face mists and some actives like hyaluronic acid or polyglutamic acid can definitely be hydrating and dewy; their BB-based formulations are often practical for daily life too.” Korea has a unique ‘prevention rather than cure’ philosophy to skincare which helps promote long-term skin health, believes Kastia. “Most beauty products are designed to provide cure to skin issues such as acne, dryness and dullness through use of high-strength actives which provide short-term results but damage skin health in the long term. Korean skincare has proven to be just as effective while being super gentle on the skin,” he further explains. On the same lines, Haldipurkar reveals that even employing a potent active ingredient like retinol in a product requires official declarations as per laws in Korea. 

“Product development is divided into two parts—formulation and manufacturing. The formulation can be devised in any chemist lab in the world and then comes a tech transfer of the formulation for mass production,” explains Haldipurkar. She broaches that it is paramount for the manufacturing unit to possess the right utensils, equipment and technologies to fabricate the formulation into a finished product. “If a facility has what it takes in India, that’s great, but we do it in Korea because besides the availability of the required technology, our mass production and packaging also happens to be in Korea, and so the entire process is streamlined there. Additionally, sourcing and procuring imported ingredients in Korea is not only easier but comes with a better efficacy promise,” concludes Halidpurkar. 

“India has access to cheap skilled labour, which has the potential to make our products very competitive and attractively priced in the global market. However, this requires massive capital investment in R&D and improving our sourcing capabilities,” shares Kastia on how India can transform into a skincare hub, much like Korea.

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