WTF are butter skin and bleached brows, and why are they trending?
Ray Liu dives into some of the latest beauty trends, with tips on how to get glowy skin and faded brows
Butter skin and bleached brows are just two of the latest Asian beauty trends.
Photo illustration by Ryan Quan
Words by Ray Liu
You might have noticed two beauty trends on the rise on social media lately: butter skin and bleached brows. Trends come and go, now more than ever with short-form media consumption. And the latest beauty trends may reveal more about our relationship to history and self-care than you think. So, let’s go beyond the borders of these current K-beauty trends.
Since 2020, K-beauty has shed its label as a niche beauty category and continues to dominate the global beauty market. The current average consumer is admittedly curious about the booming industry of K-beauty, from the multi-step skincare routine to the wide shade range of foundation cushions, despite the U.S. tariffs. For all it’s worth, K-beauty has struck a chord in many Americans, reminding us to take care of the largest organ of our body: our skin.
Influencer marketing is K-beauty’s weapon of choice. Seeding campaigns skyrocketed in 2023, as more Korean cosmetic brands discovered a high return on investment by simply sending free products to influencers in exchange for short-form video content. It’s no wonder why South Korea’s beauty trends are traveling faster than the speed of light, compared to its pacing just a decade ago.
At first, products and ingredients were the focal point of reviewers on social media. Arguably, in late 2021, the elasticity-boosting snail mucin was the first K-beauty ingredient to track virality. CosRx was the brand to lead that trend, with their Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence.
By 2022, the K-beauty community shifted from looking only at the product ingredients and began fixating on one catchphrase: glass skin. This trendy skincare practice was marketed as the result of achieving a healthy skin barrier, which encouraged consumers to buy more products. The public quickly moved on from the snail mucin phenomenon when Mixsoon’s TikTok-viral Bean Essence did the trick and sealed the deal, demonstrating a possible single-product result for the cost of $20. For two years, this product was the face of glass skin, until overnight collagen masks took social media by storm. You can call the overnight collagen mask an overnight success. But the mask also anchored the end of the glass skin trend.
@yurileeeee Link in my bio🫶❤️ #poreless #porelessskin #pores #howto #reduceporesize #facemask #matrigen #collagenmask #glowyskin #porcelainskin #kbeauty #koreanbeauty ♬ original sound - CFB_Daily
From glass skin to butter skin
As we move on from glass skin, the collective beauty community continues to fixate on new trends, without realizing that these trends are coined as a consumption signal by beauty marketers.
Replacing glass skin is butter skin. Let’s not forget how quickly glazed-donut skin ran its course. In a recently published Harper’s Bazaar article, beauty and fashion journalist Hannah Thompson explores the “foodification of beauty,” while noting butter skin as social media’s new favorite buzzword.
Much like the origins of glass skin, butter skin also emphasizes the importance of hydration, showcasing noticeably plumper skin and smoother skin texture. As a result, when sunlit, butter skin radiates a soft, sultry glow. Unlike glass skin, which glorified an unnatural glassy appearance, butter skin celebrates the natural textures of the skin. And so, in a digitally driven world of social media and skin filters, butter skin is theoretically one way of rejecting the virtually undetectable filtered skin on our screens.
One way to achieve this butter skin is to maximize your skin’s hydration, starting with a hyaluronic acid or panthenol-based toner. You can also use a toner pad with similar ingredients for additional topical exfoliation to ensure your skin is prepped for the following layers of products. You may add a layer of hydrating serum to plump out your skin, but this step is usually recommended for dry and dehydrated skin types. Top off your routine with a creamy, breathable moisturizer to seal in the hydration and moisture. Remember, keeping the skin barrier drenched is the key. If you’re stepping outside—even for a minute—always apply a fortifying sunscreen that keeps your skin moisturized and protected from UVA and UVB rays.
K-beauty brand Abib launched a sunscreen stick balm in 2023, but it wasn’t until recently that they re-marketed the same product to serve the butter skin virality. This handy balm, made with U.S. FDA-approved UV filters, glides on the skin with minimal tugging, leaving a blurred, semi-matte, healthy radiance on the skin surface.
A new age of brow bleaching
Alongside the rise of the butter skin trend is the South Korean bleached-brow “hack,” with thousands of user-generated material on TikTok. But bleaching your brows isn’t something new. Zurich-based artist Illiriana Maksutaj reports for Medium, “The trend of bleached eyebrows gained momentum in the 1990s when makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin introduced them as a statement in high fashion.”
The trend has gone through many controversies over the last few decades, with some folks criticizing the trend for mocking sick people who often look pale, while others celebrated feminism through the faded or bleached-brow look that defies beauty norms and rules. And now, the trend has fallen on the laps of South Korean beauticians, observing that bleached or faded brows soften the features of a person’s eyes and overall facial structure.
One K-beauty brand in particular, Entropy, is leading this new wave of brow-bleaching. The brand, founded in 2022, is capitalizing on this trend by launching a simple and easy-to-follow kit that lightly tones down the contrast of darker brows. The kit comes with a spoolie, the dye, and six mixers in sachets. This is especially helpful for anyone who dyes their hair often and wants their brows to match their hair color. Beauty influencer Sarah Chey explains in a TikTok tutorial that the Entropy bleaching kit helps soften her dark brows to match her medium-brown hair color. Dyeing one brow in her video to demonstrate the product’s effectiveness, Chey’s bleached brow is noticeably softer and lighter than her untouched brow.
@sarahkchey My fave way to get soft kpop idol brows🤭 I do it 1x per month & it makes doing my brows so much easier!! #entropypartner #entropy #primeday #kpopidol #kpopidolbrows #brows #browdye @entropy.global ♬ tropical happy chillout(1078442) - haruo
While the bleached brow trend no longer upholds or challenges the standards of beauty, South Korea’s new take on the trend centers creative expression. And as much as the butter skin is just the glass skin trend reintroduced as a different font, the core of this trend continues to educate the masses on the importance of a healthy skin barrier. Perhaps these beauty trends are one way to get a wider audience to prioritize their health and creativity. Or maybe it’s just another cash grab by the beauty industry.
Published on September 18, 2025
Words by Ray Liu
Ray Liu is a New York-based entertainment and culture writer and K-beauty content creator. With a master’s degree in English, he finds purpose in analyzing fictional works with a cultural lens that centers marginalized communities. When he’s not writing, he’s making K-beauty content and reviews on YouTube (rayliur). Feel free to tweet him at @rayliur on Twitter.
Art by Ryan Quan
Ryan Quan is JoySauce's social media manager, associate editor, and all-around visual eye. This queer, half-Chinese, half-Filipino writer and graphic designer loves everything related to music, creative nonfiction, and art. Based in Brooklyn, he spends most of his time dancing to hyperpop and accidentally falling asleep on the subway. Follow him on Instagram at @ryanquans, and check out his work on his website.