韩媒综述：中日美妆加速进入欧美货架，K-beauty面临三方货架竞争

Chinese and Japanese cosmetics brands are accelerating their push into retail networks in the U.S. and Europe. Global retail channels that profited from K-beauty are now bringing C-beauty and J-beauty products onto their shelves in earnest, setting up a three-way contest among Korean, Chinese and Japanese brands for overseas shelf space.
A.S. Watson, the global health and beauty retailer, has launched a brand incubation platform called BrandLab and said it will focus on nurturing Asian beauty brands, according to beauty industry sources on the 26th. Notably, the company named J-beauty and C-beauty alongside K-beauty as targets for support, a sign that global retailers' interest in K-beauty is spreading to brands from China, Japan and elsewhere in Asia. Hong Kong-based A.S. Watson operates about 17,000 drugstore outlets in 31 countries, including Superdrug in the U.K. and Kruidvat in the Netherlands and Belgium.
C-beauty is already widening its overseas distribution. Chinese cosmetics company Proya will begin selling its products next month at 400 Ulta Beauty stores across the U.S. and on the retailer's online mall. Ulta Beauty has also been actively taking on C-beauty elsewhere, starting sales of Chinese color cosmetics brand Florasis at some stores in the United Arab Emirates last month.
Announcing second-quarter results in August, Ulta Beauty Chief Executive Kecia Steelman said K-beauty sales posted solid double-digit growth from a year earlier, while adding that C-beauty is also very important to the company.
Boots, the U.K.'s largest drugstore chain, has been selling SHEGLAM, a beauty brand launched by Chinese fashion platform Shein, online and in stores since August last year. SHEGLAM also entered German drugstore chain dm in October of the same year. Chinese color cosmetics brand Flower Knows began sales this year at Boots' beauty specialty stores. Florasis, a C-beauty brand that entered the upscale Paris department store La Samaritaine in 2024, plans to expand its distribution to Target and Nordstrom in the U.S. within this year.
Chinese color cosmetics brand Girlcult also moved into the U.S. offline market by entering the flagship store that Asian beauty specialty retailer Skoshi opened in New York in September last year. Chinese products now account for 15% of all beauty items Skoshi sells, up from 5% two years ago.
Japanese cosmetics are stepping up their overseas push as well. Japanese skincare brand Curel entered pharmacies in Germany and France last year and expanded its distribution this year to five European countries, including the Netherlands. Japanese hair care brand &honey is sold at Ulta Beauty in the U.S. and at Boots in the U.K. Boots has set up a separate J-beauty category on its official online mall, featuring Japanese brands such as Shiseido, Curel, Biore and &honey.
Cosmetics exports from China and Japan are also rising. China's cosmetics exports climbed to $7.82 billion last year from $4.84 billion (about 6.4014 trillion won) in 2021, according to the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products. Japan's cosmetics exports, as reported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, peaked at 790.6 billion yen (about 6.6612 trillion won) in 2021, fell to 515 billion yen in 2024, then rebounded to 572.8 billion yen last year.
An industry official said global retailers that improved earnings through K-beauty are now diversifying their product lineups with C-beauty and J-beauty. As retailers' options widen, competition among brands for local shelf space will intensify, the official said.