What Is It Like To Shop At Olive Young: The Largest Korean Health And Beauty Drugstore

Crystal Li
Nov 3 · 6 min read

A Review Of the In-Store Experience at Olive Young Hongdae(홍대)

Streets Of Hongdae

Hongdae is always busy. No matter what time of the day or which day of the week, the area is always packed with youngsters who are looking to have fun. Short for Hong-Ik University, the famous Korean arts school, the area around the university is surrounded by shops from local boutiques to international moguls. The region is also known for the great variety of restaurants and night clubs. As early as 9 PM, lines form outside of nightclubs with people mingling with each other. On the streets, you will find artists casually hitting some high notes or jamming to a hit song. They may we’ll be the next K-POP superstar and you may well regret not taking a video of them dancing in the streets.

Wandering around Hongdae is always an enjoyable experience. People in Hongdae are fashionistas, to say the least. You can always find the latest and trendiest outfits and makeup from the streets of the area.

Located in the heart of Hongdae, right outside of subway exit 8 and 9, is the Hongdae Branch of the biggest Korean Drugstore: Olive Young.

Olive Young Storefront

Olive Young describes itself as “A global lifestyle platform and a curator of healthy beauty”. The brand opened its first Korean health and beauty store in 1999, and since then, Olive Young has been the single most popular and preferred health and beauty brand in South Korea.

As of 2019, Olive Young now has 1,200 stores across Korea and delivers to 150 countries around the world. With the K-beauty and skincare trend, Olive Young is looking beyond the scope of Korea and is tapping into the international market.

Olive Young Is The Single Most Preferred Health & Beauty Brand In Korea
Olive Young Is Very Popular Among Consumers In Their 20s

The Olive Young in Hongdae was different from most of the other ones I have been to. In July, I went to several of their other locations including one in Sinsa-dong, but those were not as large as the one in Hongdae. Your Olive Young experience can vary drastically depends on the location. The original two-floor flagship store is in Myeongdong, which was renovated in 2017. The new flagship store in Gangnam was also introduced in 2017.

The Hongdae branch was nice and big, and very busy on a Monday night. The store carried a variety of products. From local Korean beauty and skincare products, luxury perfumes, hair styling tools, hygiene products and vitamins, you really can find almost any health and beauty related product in the store. The other Olive Young stores I have personally been to offered mostly Korean beauty brands such as 3CE and Peripera. Different from my previous experiences in other Olive Young stores, I was pleasantly surprised to find luxury and cult-favorite perfume brands such as Byredo and Diptyque.

Testing Out Diptyque Perfumes

On the day that I went, there was also a TooFaced special counter in the Hongdae store. TooFaced, along with Bobbi Brown and M.A.C are considered high-end make-up brands in the beauty industry. However, to my surprise, they are more accessible in Korea with their presence in Olive Young.

TooFaced Display

As someone who has some knowledge of, but is not extremely familiar with Korean drugstore beauty brands, I was slightly overwhelmed by the number of products in the store. Because Olive Young only carried a curated collection of each brand, I found the product selection to be extremely similar from brand to brand. Unlike Walgreens and CVS in the United States, the collection of each brand was rather small compared to that of L’Oreal or Maybelline in American drugstores. I was choosing between fifteen cushion foundations and six peachy-toned eyeshadow palettes whereas I was hoping for more variety of products from different brands.

A Snapshot of The Makeup Counter
Different Sections of The Store

What I enjoyed shopping at Olive Young the most was that I was able to try on almost every single product in the store (except the ones you need to intake). For all of the cosmetic products, there were testers in-store in which consumers were able to swatch the color and test out the texture. For the skincare products, there was a dedicated Derma-Center, where consumers could sit by the sink and the mirror to test out a product. If you are feeling super fancy, you may also put a curl in with at the hair-styling bar. From what I observed, consumers were fully taking advantage of their in-store experience. Most of the customers were trying on different lip colors, shade-matching foundations, and skin testing serums. Because of all the things I could try out in the store, I ended up staying in the store for much longer than I expected and left with more products than I intended on buying. I ended up making a 55,000 KRW purchase but ended up receiving a goodie bag with full-sized hair, skincare, and health products.

While I thoroughly enjoyed my Olive Young shopping experience, I do however wish the store was more staffed with beauty and health advisors. I liked the non-pushy environment but I could also see the benefit of having professional and educated staff on-site to provide information to those who were not fully immersed in the health and beauty world.

Subconsciously, I was comparing Olive Youg to American health & beauty drugstores. Unlike American drugstores where you are most likely not be able to test out products, Olive Young gives customers the full freedom with the testers. To me, Olive Young seems to be a hybrid between Walgreens and Ulta. It has a variety of products and (mostly) affordable price points, with a few additional higher-end brands.

I visited a much smaller Olive Young store inside a shopping mall in Dongdaemun on the day I left Korea and the experience was not comparable to my experience shopping in the Hongdae Olive Young. It felt more like a traditional drugstore with nicely laid-out products but minus the fantastic shopping experience at the Hongdae branch. I am really looking forward to visiting the two flagship stores next time I visit Korea. I expect the experience to be a sensory overload and a shopaholic’s dream.

Crystal Li

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