Ruddy cheeks defined the otherwise fair faces of the stylish young women flitting among the shops and cafes in Seoul’s hilly Haebangchon neighborhood one humid Saturday afternoon last month.
“Over blushing” or the “flushed look” — a style in which pink, red and even magenta-purple powder or cream blush is built up on the cheekbones — has been popular in South Korean beauty circles for several years. Just look at the dramatic performance makeup of K-pop stars such as Irene from the girl group Red Velvet and Jang Won-young of Ive, or the styling of celebrity photo shoots such as Blackpink’s Jisoo on the cover of Marie Claire Korea’s September edition.
But in recent months, the technique has become the central focus of daily makeup routines for many young Korean women, too.
Heesun Lee, 26, who works at a taco restaurant in the Haebangchon area, said she used to wear heavy eye makeup and a nude lip, with minimal color on her cheeks. Then she decided to make a change.
“Rather than a face full of makeup, I started loving the natural look that consists of reddish cheeks and freckles,” Ms. Lee said in an interview at the restaurant. Now she wears only blush and some lip tint, no other makeup, or even sunscreen.
“I never forget to put on blush,” she added.
Like many other young and trendy Koreans, Ms. Lee said online influencers such as Jisu Seo and Sunrin Jeoung prompted the change in her look.
She also had seen videos from Sunny Park, who has 1.2 million subscribers to her YouTube channel and said in a recent interview that she believes the blush craze in South Korea was born during the Covid pandemic.
“People focused less on full faces of makeup and started to focus on skin care, which naturally prompted the use of blush,” Ms. Park said. “Back in 2015 or 2016, it was all about contouring and looking snatched. Now it’s about looking lively, youthful and natural, and letting your natural flush show through.”
The Makeup Obsessed
Ms. Park, 26, said beauty trends often originated with makeup-obsessed viewers — widely referred to in South Korea as “cosmetic nerds” — and their hyper-analysis of K-pop stars’ makeup. But they have to replicate more wearable versions for their own use, she noted, because “K-pop performance makeup is more about longevity, so it’s much thicker.”
As the glowy and fresh blush look has been trending, makeup brands such as Clio and smaller indie brands including AOU and Naming have continued to introduce new cream and liquidlike blushes, which some beauty experts say has kept up interest in the style.
And variations are always popping up, too, Ms. Park added. Early this year, for example, Karina from the girl group Aespa was doing an onstage sound check during a tour of Taiwan when photographers snapped her with blush on her nose, prompting some fans to try that out.
Demand for makeup products has produced a boom in South Korea’s beauty industry, with domestic production reaching $12.8 billion in 2024, a 20.9 percent increase from 2023, according to the country’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
And K-beauty, just like K-pop and K-drama, has also benefited from the so-called Korean Wave, or Hallyu, the global popularity of Korean culture that began in the late 1990s.
Last year, South Korean beauty exports to the United States alone totaled $1.9 billion, according to the South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. And while the 15 percent tariff recently imposed on South Korean goods may affect retail prices, some K-beauty fans in America have sworn to keep buying their favorite products.
Even if U.S. sales decline, China is South Korea’s largest beauty market, with $2.49 billion in exports in 2024. And South Korean trends are part of the content on popular Chinese apps such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu.
But even in the overblushed look, there are styling differences between the two countries, according to Sol Lee, 28, a global marketer for the Korean cosmetics brand Amuse.
Douyin makeup, a trend inspired by the Chinese app, aims for a powdery, doll-like look, Ms. Lee said, noting that the audience sees it on a phone’s screen so it was designed to look nice from a single angle. K-pop styling, in contrast, has to be visible to audiences of thousands and from every angle, so the stars’ makeup — and their fans’ take on it — has a glossy finish.
Both styles, of course, rely on a lot of blush. “Blush isn’t the finishing touch of a look anymore,” Ms. Lee said. “It’s a crucial step in bringing about a specific mood, aesthetic or emotion.”
Ashil Im, 35, a freelance makeup artist in Seoul with more than a decade of experience, said with a laugh that she applied blush as if she were creating a watercolor painting.
“Aside from the cheeks, I pull back on everything else,” she explained. “Soft eyebrows, light mascara and then I really emphasize the blush. Even if the blush is strong, the entire look won’t be intense because the other elements are toned down.”
To achieve the look of natural flushed cheeks, she said she uses products that are lighter versions of vibrant colors, such as a less saturated shade of hot pink, to create a glowy flush. And she never uses just one product, instead mixing and matching blushes and layering powder and creams.
Once Ms. Im has mapped out the proportions of the face, she then determines how to wield her blush brush. “The force in which I apply the product also determines the depth and dimensions created on the face,” she said. “That’s why applying blush is easy, yet so hard.”
Can’t Give It Up
Rouge actually dates back centuries on the Korean Peninsula, according to Minjung Kim, the chief curator of the Coreana Cosmetics Museum, operated by the Coreana makeup brand.
For example, she said, murals found in tombs from the Goguryeo period (37 B.C. to A.D. 668) featured figures with pigment makeup: cheek blush, dark eyebrows and crimson lips.
Yet during the Joseon dynasty (1392 to 1897), the influence of Confucianism, and its value of inner beauty, produced a makeup style that was modest, subtle and focused on cleanliness. (Although, Ms. Kim added, female entertainers often wore heavier makeup, echoing the same contrast seen today between performers and their fans.)
A display in the museum, which is perched on the top two floors of the brand’s building in Seoul’s Apgujeong neighborhood, explained the four components of the basic makeup regimen used by Joseon’s upper class: skin care, face powder, eyebrows and rouge. Traditional Korean rouge, it showed, was made from safflower petals reduced to powder and then blended with an oil made from safflower, apricot or peach stones, or even rice.
“It seems Korean makeup has always valued what looks natural,” Ms. Kim said. “Though different trends come and go, there are some beauty trends that remain, and I can’t help but wonder if they’ve become ingrained into our culture.”
As for the over-blushed look, Ms. Im, the makeup artist, said: “The way I see it, Koreans can’t give up on pigment makeup.
“The flushed look isn’t about emphasizing through the obvious, like flaunting a bold statement red lip, but rather shifting the emphasis to the cheeks for a more complete look.”
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