Hilario 1

Elli Hilario
English 115 Honors
Professor Lawson
16 November 2016 2016
Argument Proposal
804 Words
The Silent Reign of Korean Beauty Products
A lot of women in the United States are using makeup; some of them happens to be fans
of Korean dramas, pop music, or the culture in general. Those women who are interested in the
Korean Culture know how smooth and healthy-looking Korean celebrities are on television, or
perhaps on Drama Fever or on YouTube. Korea has made a foundation of interest on both
domestic and international viewers for the sake of increasing their market sales, and ever since it
has [set] pace for global beauty (Cosgrove). As part of the global expansion of Korean beauty
products, how has the beauty culture and products in the United States affected?
Many of the large beauty companies are adapting into the new influence that Korean
beauty products is having around the world. All international companies share a large global
market, they have noticed Koreas wave on the beauty industry and how consumers are
beginning to use Korean-made beauty products on a daily or preferred basis. Korea is known to
originate the use of cushion compact foundation in brands such as: Etude House, Missha, Hera,
The Face Shop, Clio, etc. Noticeably, big beauty companies like Chanel, Lancme, and LOral,
also launched a cushion compact foundation in American markets. Cushion compact foundation
or BB cream has proved its use and convenience on their primary users in Korea and some of
Asia in a very appealing manner despite some hygiene issues that are later solved by Korean

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Beauty experts on YouTube. This makeup trend has been in the US markets for over a year now,
and sites like Teen Vogue has been encouraging women to use Cushion Compacts as part of their
beauty routine. Ever since, the market for cushion compacts has been expanded and implemented
on a lot of American stores ever since its release in Korea, as more people find use for it.
There are articles about bad reviews on a lot of Korean beauty products, despite its
increasing popularity in the beauty industry. Using the cushion compact as an example, the
variety of shades has drastically increased over the past years since its release in Korea. The
Korean market only sold shades for lighter skins, since they value pale, but somewhat healthylooking skin in their culture, however, its popular expansion all over the world has made other
large international beauty companies create shades that will sell on western markets, and some
eastern markets. There are a little number of Korean products that are sold in the United States,
partly because Korean beauty is not for everyone. Since Koreans value light skin, most of the
shades are limited to those with fair skin to begin with. Koreans also market skin-lightening
products for Korean women in order to match their skin tone with the shades of foundation or
BB cream available in the market. However, this does not work for American values. People in
the United States are very diverse, and do not have one general skin shade in terms of makeup
language. Women in the United States vary in the color of shade that they need for their makeup
routine, so Korean products that are narrowed down to a specific group will not benefit the
market of the United States beauty culture.
Personally, I fear that my claims would not prove my point on how Korean beauty
products influence the United States. For my first important claim, I wrote about how Korean
beauty products are incorporated into the US market through large companies that would make
the same product for the people living in the US. Although I wanted to say that there is

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movement in the market for beauty products because the companies that market to the US are
slowly using the idea of Koreans on the shelves of various stores like Target. For my opposing
claim, I talked about how Koreans only market to people with lighter shades of skin, and that the
US would not obviously adapt into Korean makeup because of the diversity of skin shades the
US has. This claim is leaning more as topic rather than my initial idea. There may be changes
regarding which side I would pick for my topic. However, I want to make my audience aware
that Korean beauty products is slowly influencing US beauty products, making them adapt
Korean beauty techniques and practices.
People may doubt that Koreans are influencing the beauty aisles of stores. That is because
they are not aware of the Korean products in the market or they are not aware of Korean beauty
at all. I would tell them about various Korean brands like Etude House, and Laneige, and their
product origin in order to prove my point that women in the United States are also using Koreaninspired beauty products without any knowledge of it.

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Works Cited
Cosgrove, Joanna. "Korean Cosmetics: Setting the Pace for Global Beauty." Beauty Packaging.
16 Mar. 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016. <http://www.beautypackaging.com/issues/2016-0301/view_features/korean-cosmetics-setting-the-pace-for-global-beauty>.
Picardi, Phillip. "This Genius Korean Product Will Change the Way You Think About
Foundation Forever." Teen Vogue. 17 June 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/cushion-compact-foundation>.
Varagur, Krithika. "Why Korean Beauty Isn't For Everyone | Teen Vogue." Teen Vogue. 12 May
2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016. < http://www.teenvogue.com/story/korean-makeup-not-foreveryone-no-darker-shades>.