 "Seoul searching for glowing skin")
It is 4 pm in Myongdeong, one of Seoul's main shopping and tourism districts, also rated among the 10 most expensive shopping streets in the world. Being a weekend, the market is teeming with people, mostly youngsters in smart jackets, leather bags and shoes in every possible design and style.
The food carts lining the market crackle and sizzle with deep-fried dumplings, chilli-coated rice cakes, steamed red bean buns, dried, fried and smoked octopus and squid.
What catches my attention though is the numerous cosmetics stores here: from small, unusual-looking beauty stores to mass market brands to satiate the desires of a people who take beauty seriously.
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Saleswomen in these beauty stores hold little shopping baskets spilling with face masks and lotions ("free gifts, c'mon in") and ask you to check out the array of products lined on tables outside each of the main stores.
I encounter products that I've never seen before in any cosmetic shop in India: egg cream masks in - what else - egg-shaped bottles, snail slime (yes, true) face mask sheets, animal and lace mask sheets (one of the latest trends, I'm told, with whacky designs targeting youngsters who stick these sheets on their face not just to get better skin but also for "selfies"), eye masks, neck masks, yeast-extract sleeping face packs and creams, alpha-hydroxy-acid foot masks, anti-wrinkle and blackhead removal lotions with pomegranate and green tea extracts, rice bran oil cleansers, acne serums…
Unsurprisingly, the beauty regime of people in Korea, including young men who are increasingly inspired by K-pop culture, is intense. Typically, women apply anywhere between 10 and 18 beauty products on their face on a daily basis, starting with two cleansers (oil and foam) followed by toner, serums, sheet masks (daily, yes), eye creams, face creams, sunscreens, sleeping packs (also, daily), and exfoliation that's done thrice a week… you get the drift.
This is much more than the clean-tone-moisturise routine that we are used to in India.
Men are catching up and taking to many of these skincare and beauty products; Korea accounts for 20 per cent of the world market for men's cosmetics, some reports suggest. No surprise then that many of the beauty stores I encounter in Myeongdeong have generously-piled shelves that are "for men", including brow pencils, BB creams, even bright lipsticks and cheek tints!
It is no wonder then that Korean cosmetics are grabbing headlines - everywhere. On my flight back from the Incheon airport, I read an article in China Daily on "beauty business tilting from West to East" and Korean beauty companies getting aggressive in marketing their products to tourists - tax-free refund lounges and instant cash refund of sales tax to foreign tourists, for instance.
At the Shilla Stay, our hotel in the heart of Seoul, stone's throw away from Dongdemum, another popular shopping and tourist destination, my colleague and I find ourselves staring at a large suitcase of a young Chinese couple that's spilling over with Korean beauty products.
Truth be told, it is hard not to get lured by these fabulous products - the beauty experts and brand representatives at several of these stores know exactly what your skin needs. As you move in around the store, one shelf to the other, it's truly a journey of getting to know your skin better.
The best part is that these products work wonders. Late one night, in Dongdemum, a beauty representative from Face Shop applies a water-lift gel on my face to settle the redness and itchiness I feel. I'm asked not to use aloe vera on my face ("It's not for your skin type"); instead this water-lift gel would be best for keeping my skin hydrated and smooth. I'm also asked to use "volcanic clay mask" that would "melt" blackheads and acne scars.
Needless to say, I'm convinced at every step and by the end of that one hour in Dongdemum, I want to pack the entire store and bring it back to India.
It isn't difficult to understand why the beauty industry is lending a radiant glow to the economy of Korea. Consider this staggering statistic: There are roughly 2,000 local beauty brands - and growing - in the country. From niche and "indie" to mass market to those revelling in "just natural", all of Seoul is dotted with skincare and beauty stores: Innisfree, Nature Republic, It's Skin, Missha, Etude Shop, Tony Moly, Face Shop, Olive Young, et al.
In Myeongdeong - actually, pretty much all of Seoul - it is not unusual to find four or five stores of the same beauty brand in some enclave or corner of the market. If Face Shop, for instance, is present in one main lane of Myeongdeong, I find another one tucked in a different lane of the same market.
It is at this store that I observe a group of young girls who are busy checking out an array of beauty products: sea kelp mask sheets, BB cushion compacts (this is truly magical, a mixture of sun cream, make-up base and foundation, all absorbed into a special sponge), jelly texture eye shadow in vibrant colours, double-shaded, gradated lipsticks, liquid blushers for that dewy look…
Clearly, there is a lot they can choose from and I notice these young women constantly peering into their mobile phones, checking pictures of - perhaps - seasoned models in the hope to replicate their look.
Ask anyone about the makeup trends and experts will tell you it is the "dewy", "veil-like", "nude", "pigment-free" look that's the rage. There are a growing number of YouTube videos on the Korean makeup trends. One evening on a local television channel, I note that a fiction drama is actually focusing on the skincare regime of the actor while she's mouthing dialogues.
Interestingly, in Seoul, the trends in coffee and cosmetics, I find, behave similarly. In both cases, competing brands are, quite literally, stuck to each other in shopping streets and commercial complexes. It's not tough to imagine why. Koreans are finicky about - and love - both coffee and cosmetics. Holding the Starbucks coffee in the brand's signature paper cup, I'm told, is a style statement.
Even though the competition between beauty brands, one imagines, would be intense, almost all of them are investing heavily in innovation and research, bringing out 20 to 30 new products every month (most beauty brands in the West, one is told, would bring out roughly the same number of products every year). "We are serious about our beauty," the expert at Innisfree, another popular brand of Korea that comes under AmorePacific Corporation, tells me.
"It's not enough to write ginseng and green tea extract on the mask sheet package. How do the ingredients deeply penetrate into your skin, that's the challenge in innovation," she says as she drenches my face in a mask sheet at a store and smoothing it with her hands.
Like anyone else who travels to this part of the world, my journey in Seoul is an exciting exploration into skincare and finding a new me.
