My new favorite Korean lip gloss brand and what we can learn from the Korean beauty industry

When it comes to color matching, which is typically one of the most challenging aspects of the cosmetics industry, the Korean beauty manufacturers take the cake. While it takes most R&D teams in different manufacturing facilities around the world at least a few adjustments to match a lip product shade for mass production, Korea is the only place I’ve ever seen color matching achieved on the first go. For those who aren’t familiar with the process, color matching is required for scaling a lab batched sample formulation to a production-sized batch.

That being said, when you walk into a legendary Olive Young beauty counter, which is located on almost every street corner, you notice that ~70% of the products being sold are related to lips. Lip tints, lip plumpers, lip smudgers, lip glosses, you name it. Korea is well-known for their cosmetic procedures, including lip filler, which might be one of their most popular, minimally invasive procedures. I guess it makes sense that accentuating lip products would be the most popular.

During my last visit to Korea for work, I was sitting in a conference room with a colleague, and I suddenly saw her pull out the most adorable and eye-catching lip gloss I’d seen in a while. The applicator had a big white daisy on the tip and the color was a beautiful rosy pink. I made my way to an Olive Young immediately after work, searching for that same daisy applicator. I eventually found it and discovered it was made by Amuse, a Korean beauty brand. I spent some time analyzing several colors and textures of some other popular Korean lip glosses but ended up buying myself the same lip gloss my colleague had in shade 05, Strawberry.

To my surprise, the formula was quite thin and required lots of spreading across the lips in order to achieve an even coat. After time, the lip gloss would stain the lips slightly, giving a beautiful, natural hue to my lips overall. I’d say the greatest perk was that the lip gloss was actually flavored, which made the product that much more enjoyable to wear! You don’t see flavoring as much in lip products as introducing it can sometimes cause irritation or allergic reactions, but I didn’t mind it and I give this product a 5-star review.