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K-beauty exports hit $7B in H1 2026, with the US now above 20%
Korea's cosmetics exports reached a provisional $7 billion in the first half of 2026, up 27.3% year on year and the best January–June on record. By market US: $1.45B (+41.5%, 20.7% share) China: $1.01B (−6.6%, 14.4% shar
0 0One year of the 15% US tariff: how did you adjust your pricing?
It's been a year since the 15% US tariff on Korean goods took effect on Aug. 7, 2025. What happened then In the first 10 days of August, cosmetics exports to the US fell 37.2% month on month to $36.9M Basic skincare near
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0 0China fell from 19.6% to 14.4% of K-beauty exports. Time to pull back?
If there's one number export teams stared at in the H1 data, it's this: China's share dropped from 19.6% to 14.4%. Exports there fell 6.6% to $1.01B. China once took close to half of Korea's cosmetics exports, so opinion
0 0K-beauty’s off-season is fading: July became the top export month
An analysis says the old "winter is the slow season" rule in Korean cosmetics is breaking down. The numbers Cosmax made 172.47M units in Q1 2026, more than Q4 2025 (148.75M). Historically Q1 ran at about 91% of Q4. July
0 0Korea passes the US to become the world’s No. 2 cosmetics exporter, now shipping to 202 countries
In 2025 Korea overtook the United States to become the world's second-largest cosmetics exporter. France is still No. 1. Global cosmetics exports (2025) France: $24.3B Korea: $11.4B (+11.8%) United States: $10.8B Other n
0 0K-beauty is No. 1 in Japan’s cosmetics imports for a 4th year, but growth fell from 40% to 5.6%
Korean cosmetics held the top spot in Japan's imported cosmetics market for a fourth straight year, but the pace cooled sharply. Japan's imported cosmetics market in 2025 Korea's share: 30.8%, about ¥141.77B (up 0.5 poin
0 0Salmon PDRN, plant "PDRN": how much do you disclose about the source?
With PDRN now a hot skincare keyword, one question reportedly keeps coming up in supplier meetings: "Is this from salmon or from plants?" Common concerns in the field More sources than before: besides DNA from salmon mil
0 0Working with overseas creators: where ingredient explanations get lost in translation
When brands collaborate with creators abroad, a surprising number of problems come from translating ingredient and benefit explanations. Korean materials get passed along as-is and end up meaning something quite differen
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