All That K beauty

By Victoria  |  Industry Insider · Brand Spotlight Walk into a pharmacy in Myeongdong today and you might notice something that would have looked strange just a few years ago: a beauty counter taking up 70–80% of the floor space, stocked with PDRN serums and exosome creams, staffed by pharmacists fielding questions from foreign tourists in three languages. Korean pharmacy cosmetics — dermocosmetics — are having what industry press is calling their "second act," and DR.REJUGENE is one of the newest brands riding that wave. 📋 In This Guide Why Pharmacy Cosmetics Are Back What Is DR.REJUGENE? The Flagship Product: 20.1K Repair Cream The Pharmacy-First Distribution Strategy How This Fits the Bigger Picture FAQ Why Pharmacy Cosmetics Are Back Korean pharmacy cosmetics used to be a fairly quiet corner of the beauty market — overshadowed for years by the rise of H&B stores like Olive Young and budget channels like Daiso. That's shifted noticeably throu...

By Victoria  |  Industry Insider · Field Report A YouTube "digital side hustle" video kept showing up in my algorithm — the pitch was that you order cosmetics only after a customer buys, so there's zero inventory risk, and the creator claimed monthly revenue in the hundreds of millions of won reselling online. The sourcing location behind the whole strategy: OFF Beauty, Korea's warehouse-style beauty outlet chain that's been expanding fast since its first store opened in Gwangjang Market in 2025. I have a background that makes me a fairly demanding judge of this claim — I've worked in actual cosmetics export, and I've sold through Smartstore, Coupang, and Shopee myself. If single-unit wholesale sourcing without an MOQ (minimum order quantity) was genuinely possible at a walk-in retail outlet, that would be a real finding worth sharing. So the next morning, I took the subway and a bus transfer to the nearest location — Bupyeong — to see for myself. ...