Olive Young, the health-and-beauty retail chain that dominates Korea’s cosmetics shelves, has released its annual trend forecast for 2026, and the report reads less like a marketing deck and more like a map of how Korean shoppers are redefining what “self-care” means. Branded FULLMOON, the report names eight consumer movements the retailer expects to shape sales floors and search terms through the year.
The most striking trend is what the company calls “Feel-Good Wellness,” a shift in which beauty spending increasingly overlaps with sleep and stress management. Olive Young reported that sales of sleep-support supplements, including magnesium and GABA-based products, rose more than 300 percent year-on-year on its platform. A related trend, “Unwind to Win,” points to relaxation-oriented body care, from weighted eye masks to aromatherapy rollerballs, as consumers treat calm as a purchasable outcome rather than an afterthought.
Climate is reshaping routines too. The “Lifestyle Shift” trend describes shoppers adjusting skincare to Korea’s increasingly erratic weather, with lightweight, high-SPF, quick-absorbing formulas gaining ground as summers grow hotter and more humid. Meanwhile “Layered K-Routine” suggests the multi-step Korean skincare regimen is not disappearing but simplifying, with consumers favoring fewer, multi-functional products over the ten-step routines that once defined the category abroad.
Medical aesthetics are also bleeding into daily habits. The “Medical-Home Loop” trend tracks demand for at-home devices and formulas that mimic dermatology-clinic treatments, from LED masks to peptide ampoules, as consumers try to stretch the effects of clinic visits between appointments. On the color cosmetics side, “Over the Makeup” points to a boom in tinted lip and cheek products that double as skincare; Olive Young said sales of its color lip serum line jumped 727 percent year-on-year, while searches combining makeup with skincare keywords rose about 150 percent.
The report’s final two trends look further out. “One-Bite Luxury” describes shoppers trading up to small, premium indulgences, such as a single high-end serum, rather than committing to full luxury lines, while “Next-Gen Beauty Concierge” points to AI-assisted product recommendation and diagnosis tools becoming a standard part of the shopping experience, both online and inside physical stores.
Olive Young’s scale gives the report unusual weight in the industry: as the largest offline beauty retailer in Korea and an increasingly important export gateway for Korean cosmetics brands abroad, the trends it flags often become the trends international buyers chase. For overseas fans of K-beauty, FULLMOON offers an early signal of which product categories are likely to expand beyond Korea’s borders in the coming year, well before they show up in duty-free stores or e-commerce listings overseas.
Source: Jung Yeon-sim, Cosmorning, December 19, 2025.
