GENEROUS BENEFITS OF JEJU
Korean cosmetic brand Innisfree promotes the ‘real way’
Inone of his most famous poems, William Butler Yeats expressed his desire to go to the uninhabited island of Innisfree in Lough Gill, County Sligo, Ireland, and live alone in a “bee loud glade”. The Irish poet was probably homesick when he penned The Lake Isle Of Innisfree in 1888.
Almost a century later, Suh Sung-whan founded an equivalent of Innisfree on Jeju, a volcanic island located southwest of the Korean Peninsula.
It wasn’t a place of solitude for the founder of Amorepacific (South Korea’s biggest cosmetic company) but a source of abundant beauty boosters now bottled into natural products under the poetic brand name Innisfree.
While launched in 2000, its global expansion only began three years ago, finally coming to Thailand with the flagship store at Centerpoint of Siam Square having opened its doors since the end of last month.
The store introduces consumers to Jeju and its natural ingredients, such as volcanic scoria formed as lava cools after an eruption. Featured in the best-selling Super Volcanic Pore Clay Mask, it absorbs sebum and washes away impurities, while moisturising the skin.
Since 2007, the volcanic island and its lava tubes have been recognised as Unesco World Heritage Sites. Jeju is also one of the world’s top three green tea production centres, due to the climate, fertile soil and clean water, ideal for growing Camellia sinensis.
While Amorepacific has been manufacturing cosmetics since 1945, the founder turned himself into an agriculturist in 1979 when he transformed rocky wasteland halfway up Jeju’s Mount Halla into a grand organic tea garden, which now provides the main ingredients for the hydrating product line.
Suh wanted South Korea to have its own quality tea as well promote the tea-drinking culture, through the O’Sulloc brand and its tea houses.
Other Jeju ingredients include brightening t angerine peel, soothing bija (nutmeg), anti-wrinkle seaweed and firming soybean.
Identifying eight beauty concerns among Asian women, Innisfree came up with eight natural solutions powered by these ingredients, while the formulation minimises the use of chemical ingredients.
In the last two years, the brand has become more recognised for its “real way” instead of runway make-up products, which allow women to practically wear them in everyday life. At the Bangkok flagship store, consumers can also find foundations and powders with shades customised for the Thai market.
Eco-friendly containers, soy ink and recyclable materials are used by the nature-loving brand, whose green campaigns include bottle recycling and turning them into works of art such as the chandelier that hangs at the store.
A soap-making zone has participants touching and smelling Jeju’s natural ingredients — green tea, tangerine and volcanic cluster — by kneading their powder into the soap base, for a bubbly retail experience.