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Skin, K-beauty, Korea trips and the beauty industry — ask and share
ODMs are posting record results. What does that mean for small brands’ production slots?
The two biggest Korean ODMs just had record quarters, and reports say factories now run busy year-round as the off-season fades. Good news for the industry, but early-stage brands may feel it differently. Worries small b
0 0Kolmar Korea and Cosmax post record Q2, lifted by indie brands
Korea's two biggest cosmetics ODMs both posted their best quarter ever. Kolmar Korea Operating profit ₩110.3B (+50.2%) Revenue ₩861.3B (+17.9%) Cosmax Operating profit ₩73.7B (+21.3%) Revenue ₩794.9B (+27.5%) What drove
0 0Kolmar Korea retakes the market-cap lead over Cosmax after 560 days
The ODM ranking flipped again on the stock market. As of May 20, Kolmar Korea was worth ₩2.1669 trillion and Cosmax ₩2.0089 trillion, ending Cosmax's lead that had run since Oct. 30, 2024, 560 days in all. Numbers behind
0 0Writing a product brief for the lab: don't leave these out
Work with an OEM/ODM lab or in-house R&D team and you will often hear "if only the brief were more specific." Samples bouncing back several times is often less about formulation skill and more about gaps in the brief. He
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 0If you founded an indie K-beauty brand, what would your next step be?
K-beauty now offers a range of "next steps": private-equity money, acquisitions by global groups, IPOs, and even Korean brands buying Korean brands. Trade-offs people often mention Sell to a global giant: distribution an
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If I founded an indie brand, my next step would be…
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0 0Dupe culture, K-beauty edition: smart shopping or just the same factory?
Dupe threads are some of the busiest posts on beauty forums right now. Someone finds a cheaper product that feels like a cult favourite, and the comments explode. In K-beauty the debate has an extra twist. Korea has larg
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 M&A in 2025: 26 deals worth $1.8B, the biggest since COVID
M&A data provider ION Analytics tallied K-beauty deal flow for 2025 (as of November 2025). Overall 26 K-beauty deals worth $1.8B, a post-COVID record Four of the top 10 deals of the past five years came in 2025 Four priv
0 0Starting a beauty brand abroad with a Korean manufacturer: private label vs custom formula
Many founders outside Korea work with Korean ODMs. The first decision is how custom you go.
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Which route are you considering?
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0 1Writing your first formula brief for a Korean ODM: what to include
A clear brief saves weeks of back-and-forth. Manufacturers see many vague briefs ("like product X but better"), so a structured one stands out.
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Hardest part of your brief?
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0 1Things to Prepare Before Your First Cosmetics Brand OEM/ODM Meeting
When you’re preparing to launch your first brand, the most daunting question is, “What should I bring to the manufacturer?” To keep the meeting moving quickly, it’s better to come prepared with numbers rather than concep
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What matters most when choosing your first manufacturer?
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