The ‘Flawless’ Imperfections of K-Beauty

Korean beauty (K-beauty) has secured itself in the global beauty market over the last decade. Its skincare product consumers quadrupled between 2014 and 2018, and that was before a global pandemic that afforded the average consumer the time to indulge in a seven-step skincare routine. Initially a loosely kept secret among the Asian population, but as K-pop and whimsical Korean skincare products grew more popular worldwide, K-beauty products were catapulted into the mainstream, going up against the likes of L’Oreal and Unilever. By 2021, the K-beauty market reportedly stood at a market size of $9.6 billion. Beyond makeup and skincare products, South Korea now leads the world in fast and high-quality cosmetic procedures.

As a K-beauty product reviewer (and a regular consumer since 2015), I was thrilled to be in the presence of NPR’s host-at-large, Elise Hu, at her book launch on May 23 at The Korea Society in New York, with journalist Hannah Bae as the interviewer of the event. For her newly released book, Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital, Hu spent nearly four years in Seoul, South Korea, interviewing locals and gaining a deeper understanding of how the K-beauty machine operates. For someone deeply entrenched in the industry already, this is not a particularly revelatory book, but newcomers will find it an interesting crash course on a rising global trend. Regardless, it adds to the conversation of how Korean beauty standards have parasitically latched onto the locals’ basic, daily functions, from getting a job to dating. Hu’s book—full of research and personal experiences—sparks discussions of K-beauty’s future against a global consumer base. With the rise of self-care empowerment consumerism and the global accessibility of Korean cosmetic products, we need to proactively ask ourselves if we are consuming these products and getting procedures done on our bodies for our own well-being or if we have simply succumbed to the highly effective marketing tactics.

The obsession with K-beauty does not stop with K-Pop idols or South Korean actors and actresses. Hu began her event with the first lesson she learned as a foreigner in Seoul: "If the solution exists, then why won’t you use it?” This “solution” normalizes finding problems within yourself that need to be “fixed.” “For me, it was my freckles. Koreans were so quick to point them out to me,” says Hu. Lookism is the ideal to uphold beauty as a currency and social status symbol. In Flawless, Hu writes, the “obsession with appearance runs deep [in Seoul]—you’re expected to include a photo, height, and weight on résumés for jobs across various industries…A 2017 South Korea poll found that nearly 40 percent of respondents experience discrimination based on their appearance when applying for jobs.”

This certainly is a conundrum. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, is it that as a society Koreans value appearance, which feeds into the saturation of K-beauty, or has the K-beauty industry become so intrusive that society has accepted these beauty ideals as a norm? What’s clear to me is that these norms are greatly supported by K-beauty’s restless marketing. At the book launch, Hu greeted me with a bright smile and a “Cool!” when I introduced myself as a K-beauty content creator before asking her my question at the end of the event.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Ray Liu: When I am working on [product reviews] and talking to marketers, I noticed that the difference between communicating with U.S. brands and Korean brands is that Korean brands don’t expect me to only talk about the good things. They are willing to have me be as honest as possible when reviewing their products. Whereas when I work with U.S. brands, there’s always a list of things I have to mention in my videos. Why do you think that’s the case, when it comes to Korean brands, they know that as long as you give their products a try, you’re going to love them?
Elise Hu: There’s a norm around being very honest with customer feedback. There are nearly 9,000 K-beauty brands right now for a country with a population of 50 million [people] and can fit within the space between Los Angeles and San Francisco. That is a huge number of players in a relatively small population. They have to be extremely sensitive to the market and to what customers want in order to compete. Because the industry is so saturated, they have to compete and that really aggressive feedback actually helps them make the products better. You’ll find in the book that the process between R&D and getting the products on shelves is equivalent to fast fashion—like Zara or H&M. With that kind of speed, you can also retire things that aren’t working very quickly. If you’re getting a bunch of bad feedback, you’re taking things off the shelves faster. Welcoming [negative feedback] is very helpful.

“For women, beauty work is compulsory. For men it’s a frivolity. It’s ‘I have enough income and time and energy to do this,’ whereas for women, it’s more of a ‘you must.’”

The largest customer base in K-beauty (skincare, makeup, and cosmetic surgeries) are helmed by women across the globe. But Hu reminds us that men still have the upperhand in this particular industry, as consumers and as stakeholders. In Flawless, Hu provides some surprising statistics: “13 percent of the world’s skincare products for men are consumed by Koreans, making them the largest per capita spenders on male skincare products in the world.” Backed by the popularity of eyeliner and eye-shadow-wearing J-pop and K-pop idols, these kkotminam (flowerboy in Korean) have sparked a new interest in cosmetics for men. Seeing these idols on stage, with their poreless skin and crisp hairlines, the modern Korean man is now grooming himself more than the average Korean man from two decades ago. Even so, while men are not exempt from K-beauty standards, Hu reminds us in her book that “the pressures…remain much heavier on women.” The key difference on how the K-beauty standards work on cisgender men versus women is that, as Hu quotes Korean cultural researcher Sharon Heijin Lee, “For women, beauty work is compulsory. For men it’s a frivolity. It’s ‘I have enough income and time and energy to do this,’ whereas for women, it’s more of a ‘you must.’”

Men are also at large in positions of power in K-beauty, being able to mold the landscape of the industry to their liking. For instance, AmorePacific Group, the largest K-beauty conglomerate comprising brands, such as Sulwhasoo, Innisfree, Etude House, Hera, Aestura, and Ryo, was led by CEO and chairman Suh Kyung-bae since 2006 before Kim Seung-hwan took over in 2022. But it doesn’t stop at cosmetic products for men in K-beauty; they also have a hand in shaping the future of these body-changing surgeries. Though popular now, South Korea’s cosmetic surgeries are rooted in an ugly history. In Flawless, Hu references Korean history scholar John DiMoia’s book, Reconstructing Bodies:

"South Korea’s world-leading plastic surgery industry has roots in reconstructive medicine from the aftermath of bloody mid-twentieth-century conflicts that shaped the country. The United States occupied the formerly unified Korea in the immediate years following World War II…The double eyelid surgery was popularized beginning in 1954, when David Ralph Millard, the U.S. Marine’s chief plastic surgeon in South Korea, conceived of his version of the double eyelid surgery and tried it on Korean sex workers…Millard popularized a method to change Korean faces for American preferences…"

The unsettling history of cosmetic alterations to the Korean face, started by the hands of an American man, debunks any claims that Koreans want to look white or to become a homogenous peoples. Historically, those who were born with monolids were forced to have double eyelids because it is a feature claimed as European or Anglosaxon. And that’s clearly not true, as many East Asians naturally have double eyelids. Acknowledging double eyelids as innately white is, as Hu writes, “an erasure of [an] East Asian feature that half of us are born with.”

South Koreans are not actually trying to achieve whiteness through these surgeries, nor are they aiming to look homogenous.

To understand the discourses of “going Anglo” and the uniform Korean face, Hu makes a visit to a surgeon’s clinic in Gangnam, Seoul, and details their conversation in her book. The surgeon, Dr. Seo, presents two photos to Hu, one of Angelina Jolie and one of Song Hye-kyo. Then, Seo asks Hu which of the two women is more beautiful, to which the journalist responds, “It depends on what you consider beautiful.” The surgeon would then explain that Jolie’s jawline is too masculine by Koreans’ beauty standards, and Song’s aegyo sal (“meaning eye smiles or cute skin”) is an aesthetic trait that South Koreans prefer. Hu also shares in the book that Seo had noticed that more and more “patients are showing him photos of [Korean] internet influencers or even non-famous people—their attractive friends—to try and emulate.” South Koreans are not actually trying to achieve whiteness through these surgeries, nor are they aiming to look homogenous. These procedures are like a buffet, where patients pick the features they like, and rarely do their results resemble cookie-cutter versions of their reference images. Sure, their noses might look similar, but the faces are still different, dispelling the narrative that these procedures help Koreans achieve the same face.

As more Koreans choose to go under the knife, the age-old myth of East Asians wanting to look more white is slowly fading, while a new narrative is being created and led by South Korean surgeons. This new narrative is what sociologist Kimberly Kay Hoang calls, as Hu cites in her book, “a specific East Asian ideal—round face, thinness and even, untanned skin tone,” arguing that a larger global population is now leaning toward the preference of an engineered, new modern Pan-Asian face. Even so, Flawless documents what Hu claims to be the most important lesson of looks through the teachings of the ajummas she met during her stay in Seoul: “…to address the paradox of beauty and body work, we should ask ourselves if the labor we’re undertaking is ego driven or soul driven…Following a soul-directed standard to make active choices about our bodies and to care for ourselves in the ways that we need honors what makes us each unique.”

“…to address the paradox of beauty and body work, we should ask ourselves if the labor we’re undertaking is ego driven or soul driven…Following a soul-directed standard to make active choices about our bodies and to care for ourselves in the ways that we need honors what makes us each unique.”

Flawless is largely broken up into chapters that outline the evolution of K-beauty. The book provides substantial context for readers, who are not readily informed about the K-beauty industry, to understand the past, the present, and the future of K-beauty. The chapters’ flow captures the growing intensity of the K-beauty experience, starting with a gaze at lighthearted, fun skincare products and gradually moving into investigating face-altering procedures, and finally concluding with a message of empowerment to “our own unique, powerful bodies,” Hu writes. The best part about this page-turner is reading Hu’s boots-on-ground experiences as a Chinese American mother and journalist in Seoul. She uses K-beauty as a vessel to explore the flaws of modern Korean culture, detailing conversations beyond skincare routines and implants. The author goes in depth on the issues of anti-feminism in South Korea, shedding light on feminists who are going up against traditional, misogynistic views (read the chapter entitled “Escape the Corset”).

Hu opens Flawless with, “I’ve seen the future, and it’s poreless,” and her book launch definitely gave me the impression that she’s still looking at the future of K-beauty. There doesn’t seem to be a slow-down in this industry any time soon. While Hu’s project began in 2015, the K-beauty industry had already changed so much by the time of her book’s publication. The gears of the K-beauty machine grind 10 times faster than the average beauty industry’s. Who knows what new K-beauty technologies and products we’ll see in the future? One thing is for sure, these K-beauty corporations are already working on their next big thing.

Hu’s book launch at The Korea Society is available for streaming on YouTube.