By South Korea is world renowned for their rising international beauty and skincare industry, and its leading brand, Amorepacific, is finally shifting its focus to Muslim women.
Due to recent political tensions with China, which is posing a threat to the South Korean beauty industry, the company has developed a solution to finally diversify its beauty line and reshift its focus to a different audience. They are now pushing into the markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, where they have to take into account more skin tones and adaptable products for the weather and cultural accommodations.
It’s common for most South Korean beauty brands to only have 2 – 4 foundation shades since they’ve only served the domestic market, but now that Amorepacific is expanding into different regions with varying skin tones, its beauty lines will be expanding as well.
South Korea is world renowned for their rising international beauty and skincare industry, and its leading brand, Amorepacific, is finally shifting its focus to Muslim women.
Not only is its new line taking into account different skin tones, it’s also well aware of the fact that Muslim women wash their face while performing wudu five times a day. Therefore, their products need to be longer lasting and more weather variable.
“The diversity of South East Asia was a challenge,” said Robin Na, the head of Amorepacific’s operations in South East Asia. “The region is a melting pot compared with China and Korea.”
It has also created focus groups to find out what Muslim women are looking for in beauty products and have found that some want lightweight options that can be easily removed and reapplied after wudu whereas others want products that can put up with the humidity.
“The diversity of South East Asia was a challenge,” said Robin Na, the head of Amorepacific’s operations in South East Asia.
Also, Muslim customers who wear hijab tend to want to highlight the areas of their faces that are revealed, Na said, meaning they want more vibrantly colored lipstick and eyeshadow.
These efforts will be pushed primarily through five brands: Laneige, Innisfree; Etude House; Sulwhasoo; and Mamonde. All these brands are well known and some have even become available in large retailers such as Sephora in North America over the past year.
The Muslim population in South East Asia totals close to 300 million, according to Abas Jalil, the chief executive at the Kuala Lumpur-based consultancy Amanah Capital Group.
By 2019, the annual global spending by Muslim consumers will reach $73 billion, according to the Singapore-based Institute of Asian Consumer Insight.
The Muslim population in South East Asia totals close to 300 million.
More than 60 percent of the world’s Muslims live in Asia, so it is about time that these major beauty companies tapped into this market.
“Brands must be confident in their understanding of Muslim consumers and combine that with a nuanced understanding of how the faith exists in the context of different cultures,” said Q Akashah, Singapore-based executive director at Islamic marketing consultancy OgilvyNoor.
It’s a progressive step for a leading South Korean company to diversify and emerge in the Muslim cosmetics market where they’ll be catering specifically to their needs and hopefully other companies will follow their lead to diversify.