South Korean beauty app Hwahae makes it easier for users to find their perfect Makeup Look online with a new feature
Hwahae is a well-known and hugely popular cosmetics review app in South Korea that also allows users to search for products that match their skin. Recently, the app has released a new function called “Makeup Look”, which incorporates social media elements.
Hwahae is a comprehensive cosmetics review app that provides rankings by skin-type and age and has comments and reviews by users. It also allows users to search for ingredients and purchase products. According to the latest official data (as of January 26, 2021), Hwahae features around 5.77 million user reviews, 187,809 products, and 11,914 brands, and has around 9 million users in total. For beauty lovers in South Korea, it’s the must-have app. The reason Hwahae has succeeded so well in gaining popularity comes down to the thoroughness of its ingredient analyses and its abundance of user reviews. In particular, the ingredient analyses cite guidelines provided by ministries of the South Korean government and US environmental groups as well as many different data sources. These analyses inform users in detail not only about the functionalities of the ingredients included in cosmetics but also aspects such as the risk of allergies.
Hwahae’s revenue model includes advertisements and usage rights of their store ranking sticker, as well as e-commerce. Indeed, most of the items featured on Hwahae, except a select few, are available for purchase through the app.
Allowing users to post makeup photos through Makeup Look
Recently, Hwahae added the new function “Makeup Look”.
Makeup Look works in a similar way to social media. Users can post photos of themselves with makeup applied and other users can view what products they used and what makeup tips they have and share these contents too. Users who post appear in a list along with their photo, and by tapping on one of them you can see their personal page and check out their details. On these personal pages, the products they used when applying their makeup are also listed with icons, and if you’re interested in that user’s particular style, you can purchase the same products they used directly within the app.
Unlike platforms such as Instagram where users can post freely when content is uploaded on Makeup Look, users must stick to the format outlined below. The posts are also checked by Hwahae’s editorial team.
Posts must:
- Have a catchphrase that overall expresses the theme of the user’s makeup
- Include makeup-related keywords (for hashtags)
- Specify which makeup-applied region is shown (e.g. foundation, eyebrows/eyes, lips, etc.)
- Have a makeup photo of the facial region to shown
- Specify the makeup-applying procedure for the region as well as the user’s own tips
- Specify every cosmetics product that was used as well as images that convey the coloring
- (Optional) Have a full shot of the face after having applied the makeup
By establishing these rules, content gets created that is easier for users to digest. Previously, the main functions of Hwahae were just searching for, verifying, and matching cosmetics. However, Makeup Look has added more of a personal touch to the app, and the approach of making content clear for all users can be said to have been quite radical.
Another addition: A service to recommend suitable cosmetics
Before Hwahae implemented Makeup Look, they added the new feature “My Skin Matching Function” in April 2019 of which over a million users had already begun using by the end of June 2020.
My Skin Matching Function is a personalized service that curates and recommends reviews that match users’ personal information, such as their age, skin type, and skin issues. Users have praised how it’s saved them the trouble of having to search for reviews all the time, and it was announced that up to 10 million reviews have been read via this feature. Those making use of it are overwhelmingly users in their twenties (49%) and teenagers (24%).
From all these initiatives, we can see Hwahae’s plan to compete in the market by adding social media elements, more individualized matching, and personalization to their existing logical cosmetics ingredients database. As can already be seen from the posting process that Makeup Look implements, their strategy seems to be to add these extra elements while maintaining their strength of rich and accurate data and content.
On the other hand, their challenge from here on will likely be working out how to expand purchases through Hwahae. In South Korea, along with the two major e-commerce platforms of Coupang and Naver, there are a plethora of mall-style shopping sites such as Gmarket, 11 Street, and Lotte.com as well as cosmetics specialty stores such as Olive Young. This variety gives consumers added convenience as each platform has its distinct qualities — for example, Navar provides diverse methods of payment and Coupang can do next-day deliveries. Thus, Hwahae will likely need to give users a compelling reason to purchase cosmetics through their platform.
Text: Ching Li Tor
Original text (Japanese): Jonggi HA
Contributor: Mijoung Yoon
