kbeautytmi › Issues › 2026-W29
The 2026-W29 issue.
Every story we published from the 2026-W29 snapshot, in one place. 10 stories so far — more open through the week. The raw data is in the 2026-W29 archive →
HypedSat2026-07-26
AI recommends a brand 25 times. It's on one shelf.
We ask four AI assistants the same 60 K-beauty questions each week and count which brands the answers name. Some brands the assistants recommend heavily are barely on a shelf: Dr.Jart+ is cited 25 tim
LabSun2026-07-25
YesStyle and Skin Cupid are almost the same store.
We track 15 channels as if they were 15 separate shelves. Two of them are not: YesStyle and Skin Cupid share 20 charting brands — 59% of the smaller shelf. If you are a brand deciding where to land, s
Just LandedFri2026-07-24
Anua is #1 in America and #65 at home.
Anua reaches more retail channels than any brand we track — 11 of 15. But reach flattens a brand into one number, and Anua's actual position swings from #1 of 94 at Skin Cupid to #65 of 100 at Olive Y
IngredientsThu2026-07-23
Five ampoules chart in Korea. Zero chart in the US.
Most ingredient gaps are a matter of degree. Three are absolute: this week, ampoule, barrier and mung bean each appear on five, four and two Korean top-100 products and on exactly zero US-facing ones.
StockedMon2026-07-22
A brand on nine channels isn't twice a brand on five.
"Available in nine channels" is the most quotable number in K-beauty distribution, and the most misleading one. Our channels are not equal-sized gates: the deepest sample we take is 195 rows, the shal
Not Here YetTue2026-07-21
Wall Street is indexing K-beauty. Two-thirds of it sits on one shelf.
Korean trade press is covering K-beauty's arrival on the New York exchange — and, in the same breath, delisting pressure on marginal firms. Our shelf data explains why both are true at once: the categ
StockedMon2026-07-20
67% of K-beauty brands never leave a single channel.
We track 221 K-beauty brands across 15 live retail channels. 148 of them — 67% — appear on exactly one. No brand reaches all 15; the widest reach belongs to Anua, at 11.
LabSun2026-07-19
Sephora and Ulta share exactly one K-beauty brand.
Two US prestige retailers, both selling K-beauty, both with a best-seller chart we archive weekly. Sephora carries 16 Korean brands on its chart this week. Ulta carries 17. The overlap is one brand.
Not Here YetTue2026-07-18
Exports hit a record $7B. Nearly half of Korea's top brands still aren't on a US shelf.
Korean cosmetics exports rose 27% to a record $7.0 billion in the first half of 2026, with the US the single largest buyer at 20.7%. Our archive says the boom is narrower than the number suggests: of
IngredientsThu2026-07-17
PDRN searches are up 811%. The shelves haven't caught up.
The salmon-DNA ingredient is the fastest-heating signal on our radar this week: US search demand has multiplied 9x year over year, while PDRN products hold just 7 chart slots across the 15 retail chan