Snail slime’s skin care role taken at face value in U.S.
Snail slime. On your face. All for the sake of beauty.
And, hopefully, a handsome profit forU.S. retailers looking to push it along with other K-beauty trends into the mainstream — if people can get over the “ick” factor.
SouthKorean consumers are on a constant hunt for innovativeproductsandunusual ingredients.
Now, the decade-old craze is making its way to everyday consumers in the U.S., as K-beauty products jump from niche websites and slide onto the shelves at Target, CVS and Ulta Beauty stores. The retailers earlier this year announced expansions of the merchandise.
“People used to talk about French skin care,” said Sarah Chung, the head of Landing International Inc. which partnered on Ulta’s Korean collection. “We don’t really call it that anymore. Right now we say it’s K-beauty, but it’s really just great skin care.”
Target is selling the products in about 850 stores and said they represent about 25 percent of its total premium offerings.
Ulta said it expanded its offerings with a prestige collection in March, and CVS began rollingK-Beauty HQat 2,100 stores in April.
Target and CVS partnered with Alicia Yoon, the founder of K-beauty retail platform Peach& Lily.
While none of the three stores provided sales data, CVS said the launch had been “very successful” and it’s gotten positive customer feedback on the collection’s innovation, high quality and accessibility.
The timing couldn’t be better for South Korean cosmetic companies.
Exports to the U.S. already increased by about half in 2016 from a year earlier to $300 million while the country’s total exports declined, according to the Korea International Trade Association.
Brands are getting more aggressive about their international expansion as sales to Chinese shoppers suffer amid strained ties between the two countries.
South Korea’s biggest beauty company, Amorepacific Corp., already has five brands in the U.S. and is poised to start selling a sixth, innisfree, targeting millennials with cheaper products, Amorepacific said in an email. Revenue at the group comes from South Korea, with 71 percent as of last year, and 19 percent from China, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
While Koreans put snail slime on the map, it’s Chileans who get the credit for discovering its apparent benefits.
The Bascunan family started selling snails for food — escargots — to French wholesalers in the 1980s. The business wasn’t a great success, but it made an unexpected discovery while harvesting the animals.
The secretion filtrate seemed to heal cuts and grazes caused by handling the metal cages containing the snails.
“South Korean consumers are always looking to the next innovation, and snail slime when introduced was well-received,” said David Tyrrell, a global skin care analyst atMintel Group. “It was new, arguably exotic and recognized by consumers to readily moisturize the skin and produce anti-aging related benefits.”
But the use of filtrate has begun to wane in South Korea as the novelty wears off. The fascination for natural ingredients remains in line with “hanbang,”or traditional Korean herbal medicine — some 69 percent of facial skin care launches in South Korea last year featured botanical claims, including fermented tea, black olives and volcanic ash, according to Mintel.
While there’s “strong” potential for Korean brands to continue the transition to mainstream stores from specialty retail, the products need to be priced to encourage first-time buyers, Tyrrell said.
The treatments may be more expensive than drugstore brands such as L’Oreal.