Clean craze: Olive Young expects clean beauty portfolio to achieve $200m in sales this year

The company recently revealed that the cumulative sales of brands in its clean beauty portfolio exceeded KRW500bn (USD380m) across the last three years.

This lineup includes brands such as Aromatica, Abib, beplain, Round A’Round, and Hyggee.

It highlighted the successes of clean beauty brands such as Round Lab and Torriden. In 2022, their sales increased by 2.6 and 3.3 times respectively compared to the previous year.

It attributed this rise to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought about a paradigm shift in the beauty industry.

“Olive Young Clean Beauty has grown more rapidly during the pandemic, leading the value consumption trend in the beauty market. Amid growing interest in safety and the environment, the number of millennial and gen Z consumers consuming clean beauty brands with good ingredients and brand philosophies has increased.”​

Olive Young is a major health and beauty store retail chain by the CJ Group, one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates.

Today, its line-up of clean beauty brands at Olive Young has increased from 12 to 40. This group, which used to be skin care-centric, has expanded to include hair and body care.

The retailer expects clean beauty sales to continue growing. This year, the retailer believes clean beauty brands to achieve annual sales of KRW300bn (USD228m).

“Environmental and ethical consumption have emerged as major values, and clean beauty, which considers health and environment together, has become a lifestyle. Olive Young plans to continue its efforts to expand the market so that clean beauty can go beyond a trend and become a standard in the cosmetics industry.”​

A clean engine of growth

In 2020, the retailer started its own clean beauty standard and curated a range of brands that meet its definition of clean.

This includes the exclusion of 16 potentially harmful ingredients, as well as compliance with animal-friendly and earth-friendly practices. Brands that meet these expectations are awarded a clean beauty seal.

Olive Young developed this in response to the growing interest in clean beauty in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.

According to its 2020 consumer research, 87.5% of 2,000 women said they were more interested in the ethics and values of cosmetic brands than in the past. However, 82.5% said there was not enough information about clean beauty.

It believed clean beauty products had to potential to become a growth engine for the company and the K-beauty industry.

Recently, the company expanded the retail presence of its own clean beauty brand Round A’Round into Japan to capture a share of the sun care market.