The beauty stores in Manhattan’s Koreatown are packed, even on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. But this time, an associate that spoke to CNN in one of the stores had some warnings: One popular sunscreen had changed its formula since it’s now manufactured in the United States. Another has been sold out for weeks.
If 25% tariffs on South Korea go through, more changes could be on the way. South Korean acting President Han Duck-soo previously told CNN his country would not fight back against the tariffs, instead hoping to negotiate with the US. Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs toward the country on Wednesday, however, but did not indicate he was pausing the 10% universal tariff on all trading partners.
Just a decade ago, Korean beauty products were rarely seen on American store shelves. Now the United States imports $1.7 billion worth of cosmetics products from South Korea, according to 2024 data from the US International Trade Commission, even more in value than beauty powerhouse France. Korea’s giant beauty conglomerates have millions of customers around the world — one of the biggest, Amore Pacific, recorded $2.87 billion in sales in 2024, and its Americas sales surpassed those in China for the first time in the company’s history.
Along with K-dramas and K-pop groups, American consumers just can’t get enough of affordable, ultra-filtered Korean sunscreens, glass-skin face serums and 10-step skincare routines. But these products, especially sunscreens, have modern UVA and UVB filters that the US Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved yet so they aren’t present in US-manufactured items. This means Korean skincare’s biggest fans have no alternatives stateside.
And at a time where Trump’s tariff agenda could raise prices and change product formulas, they are freaking out.
“I’m unwell,” one TikTok user commented under a video this week. “If I have to use American skincare products my face will age horrifically in the recession.” (The United States is not formally in a recession.)
While US skin products can feel goopy and leave a white cast, Korean alternatives blend seamlessly and are a fraction of the cost of other imported high-end products. This is in part because troves of Korean beauty products enter the United States without any tariffs added on, thanks to the Korea Free Trade Agreement from 2012.
Along with the affordability, a “Korean wave” in the US has “helped expand the (skincare) market globally,” Andrew Yeo, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies, told CNN. K-beauty may not be Korea’s biggest export, especially compared to automobiles and semiconductors, but the industry allows the country to profit from its cultural impact in the US, he added.
Young Americans are often familiar with Korean brands and become loyal customers, he said. But if a college or high school student sees prices go up, they may reconsider buying those products.
Prices to rise, formulas to change
Christina Im, who owns US-based Korean skincare seller Olive Kollection, stocked up on about $40,000 worth of products from her distributors last weekend after Trump announced the tariffs. During what would be a more typical week, her company spends about $5,000 to $10,000 on those products.
“As a small business, we don’t have that much cash on hand to buy everything in large bulk,” Im said. “We just bought as much as we could for now and have to wait and see.”
Im is hoping to absorb some of the costs and not raise prices significantly, but she knows customers are pulling back on spending. Right now, her warehouse is filled to the brim with samples that she’s stocked up on.
“If business is going to be slow, I’m just going to try to hold out as long as we can,” she said. She estimated that her business would absorb some of the costs, so price increases would be around 10% instead of the full tariff amount.
Korean American skincare brand KraveBeauty said in a TikTok that in its seven years of operating, its prices have always been below $28. But that could change starting with its incoming shipment from South Korea.
“It’s not something that’s coming out of greed. It’s actually inevitable at this point,” Liah Yoo, the founder of KraveBeauty, said on TikTok. “I don’t think KraveBeauty is going to be an exception in this case.”
Even dedicated beauty fans who order from distributor sites like Yesstyle and Stylevana can expect to be hit by price hikes. Yesstyle and Stylevana, for example, mainly ship from their warehouses in Hong Kong. And Trump eliminated the de minimis provision — which allows packages worth less than $800 to enter the country duty-free — starting May 2 for goods from China and Hong Kong.
A global shakeup
Because their products aren’t FDA-approved yet, some Korean brands have already discontinued selling sunscreens in the US or even moved their manufacturing inside the US.
Kolmar — a skincare manufacturer for a variety of different brands — for example, has a lab in New Jersey and a facility in Pennsylvania, created in 2023, long before any talks of tariffs under the second Trump administration.
But opening up more facilities within the United States could affect sales another way. Products will have to comply with US regulations and could leave out the key ingredients that attracted consumers in the first place.
“If it’s not made the same way and it doesn’t have the same effect, then people are not going buy these products,” Yeo said.
And moving manufacturing is a major investment for an economic policy that could only be in place for a few months or years, Yeo said.
Korea may have to diversify its trading partners instead, Park Sang-in, a professor of economics at Seoul National University, previously told CNN.
But for Americans who have gotten used to having dewy, bouncy skin, it’s hard to go back. Munseob Lee, an assistant professor of economics at University of California San Diego, told CNN that he expects US customers will swallow the cost of the tariffs because there isn’t an alternative.
Many users on social media are already showing off their Yesstyle orders or frantically rummaging through their skincare cabinets to see what they need to restock on.
As one TikTok user declared: “Might as well just buy a plane ticket to Korea.”
CNN’s Yoonjung Seo and Lex Harvey contributed to this report.
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