Korean Cosmetics Awards point to “Clean Beauty” and “Fragrance” as keywords for 2022
Korea’s most influential beauty review sites and major cosmetics retailers held a series of cosmetic awards to recognize trends and hot-selling products for 2021. The award-winning products, which are based on a vast amount of purchase data and user insight analysis, predict that the trends of makeup under masks, clean beauty, and fragrance will continue in 2022.
Keywords selected by GLOWPICK, a leading trend analyzer
The 2021 GLOWPICK AWARDS, held by the leading review app GLOWPICK, covered 115,692 different products, and the winning products were selected based on 551,964 reviews (32,303 unique review users).
GLOWPICK analyzed that the pandemic continued to affect the market in 2021. This is exemplified by the popularity of “untouched beauty items” such as balms and pads that can be used without direct hand contact. The award-winning KAHI “Wrinkle Bounce Multi Balm” comes in a lipstick-like container and can be used directly on wrinkles and lines.
As more and more consumers use masks to cover their faces on a daily basis, they are trying to express their individuality through fragrances, and items with good scents, mainly in the hand cream and body wash categories, have become hot sellers. The winner of this “perfumed beauty” keyword was NONFICTION’s “Gentle Night Hand Cream”.
Interest in the health of the skin and “early anti-aging” has increased, especially among Millennials and Generation Z. In addition, the “inner beauty” trend, in which people absorb ingredients that regulate their internal environment by applying them, has become popular. As a result, the lineup of items containing ingredients such as lactic acid bacteria and collagen increased.
GLOWPICK also focused on the selection of the CLEAN BEAUTY category, which is fast growing a global trend. It selected products that met at least two of the following criteria: vegan, cruelty-free, environmentally friendly (sustainable), and organic, and that was recognized by users for their product strength. The final winners were Tovegan’s Green Grow Up Cream (skincare), DEAR DAHLIA’s Paradise Dream Velvet Lip Mousse (lip makeup), and Salon de RIZ’s Rice Powder Foam Cleanser (cleansing). The winners of this year’s awards included the following.
Hwahae Beauty Awards highlights clean beauty brands
Hwahae, Korea’s largest social review app, held its seventh Beauty Awards, analyzing more than 700,000 reviews of 150,000 products on the market by October 2021, selecting the top 10 in each of 100 categories. In addition, there are titles such as “Trend Awards” for trendy products, “Best New Products for the Second Half of the Year” for products registered in the second half of 2021, and “2021 Hwahae Hall of Honor” for products that have won first place three or more times in the past beauty awards.
Products inducted into the 2021 Hwahae Hall of Honor included global brands such as Estee Lauder, L’Occitane, and German organic skincare brand Martina Gebhardt, as well as Amore Pacific’s moisturizing skincare brand ILLIYOON.
The 2021 “Trend Awards” selected by Hwahae were subdivided into different categories, but the main category, the “ Hwahae Shopping Category,” was characterized by-products from small and medium-sized brands and clean beauty products.
Powder Room’s picks reflect votes from the MZ generation
Powder Room, Korea’s leading beauty community platform, held two separate awards in 2021, one for the first half of the year and one for the second half, and announced the results of the “2021 Second Half Beauty Awards” in December 2021.
One of the features of the awards is that users, mainly millennials and Generation Z, participated in the voting. The Powder Room held a two-week user voting contest from mid-November through its app and official website. Based on the results of approximately 3,000 people’s votes, and reflecting the opinions of cosmetics editors and marketers, the final selection was made for 49 categories and the title of “Powder Room Picks”.
The selection criteria for the “Powder Room Picks” included “Clean Beauty,” “Home Care,” “Self-Massage,” “In-Mask,” “Mask Proof,” “Eyetem,” “Small Luxury,” and “Different Collaboration” as trend keywords.
Bi-Oil’s “Skin Care Oil,” Cell Fusion C’s “Low pH Toner,” Neutrogena’s “Deep Clean Acne Foaming Cleanser,” d’Alba’s “White Truffle Double Serum and Cream” and TIRTIR’s “Ceramic Massager”, all won awards under the same title.
According to the Powder Room, interest in low-acid skincare and cleansing products was on the rise in 2021. In the make-up category, makeup products with high staying power even when wearing masks and the trend toward eye make-up showed strength, according to the analysis.
Lotteon’s new cosmetics awards with data on more than 50 million customers
At the end of 2021, retail giant Lotteon also held a cosmetics award. Lotteon is Lotte Shopping’s integrated platform (e-commerce business), which holds data on various brands sold in the group’s offline stores, including Lotte-affiliated department stores and supermarkets, and LOHB’s drugstore. On December 13, the first “Lotteon Beauty Award” was announced, showcasing the most popular products on the platform.
Lotteon’s decision to hold the Beauty Awards is due to the huge growth of the online beauty market in Korea. According to the Statistics Bureau of Korea, the value of online shopping for cosmetics reached 12 trillion won (US$10.4 billion) in 2020, surpassing the 10 trillion won barrier for the first time. In particular, mobile shopping via smartphones and other devices has been strong, growing by more than 30% YoY.
At Lotteon, sales of cosmetics from January to November 2021 increased by about 40% compared to the previous year. The number of purchasers also increased by more than 30%, demonstrating its competitiveness in the online beauty market. On the other hand, the company has announced that it will pull out all of its poorly performing LOHB’s physical stores by the end of 2022, and the establishment of its own awards reveals its strategy to shift its focus to the online market and strengthen its influence.
In fact, this year’s awards took advantage of the Lotte Group’s strength in the beauty market. The award-winning products were selected by analyzing data from 176.57 million purchases made by approximately 57.41 million customers during the year from November 2020 to October 2021, including offline purchases at department stores with 32 stores across Korea.
At the same time, it announced the “7 major trends” selected by analyzing sales on Lotteon. The first trend is “Luxury Skincare” because the number of customers purchasing this category jumped 40% from the previous year.
The second trend is “One’s True Shade,” which emphasizes diversity in makeup and accelerates the trend of consumers preferring products that match their skin tone. The next category, “Technology on Beauty,” pointed out that attention was focused on smart beauty devices that allow consumers to care for their skin easily and efficiently at home. Lotteon claims that sales of scalp care products increased 128% YoY.
The fourth category was “Trouble Care”, where there was an increased interest in skin problems caused by wearing masks and the solutions to these problems, and the fifth category was “Eco-friendly”, where Lotteon also focused on clean beauty.
In addition, “Online Gifting” and “Niche Perfume” are considered to be the trend keywords, and the former is based on the analysis that as a result of the difficulty of shopping at real stores, consumers are increasingly buying through trusted e-commerce sites. As for the latter, the reason for the trend is that sales of the product category of the same name in Lotteon jumped by 830% YoY.
Predictions for 2022 based on the 2021 Korea Awards
These 2021 Korean awards reveal some common trends. One is that consumers are still changing their approach to cosmetics due to the pandemic. In addition, some believe that consumers are going through a trial-and-error process to figure out how to enjoy cosmetics in a world where daily life with infection control in mind has become the norm, and this is reflected in their purchasing behavior.
At the same time, clean beauty is recognized as a mainstream trend that cannot be ignored as attention to SDGs and ESG management increases worldwide. Rather, it can be said that beauty brands are moving in the direction of how they can create their originality based on the premise of “being clean”.
Text: Ching Li Tor
Original text (Japanese): Jonggi HA
