Fresh off its acquisition by Ulta Beauty last month, U.K.-based beauty retailer Space NK is welcoming another retailer crossover.
The company has joined forces with e-tailer Soko Glam to introduce K-beauty shops-in-shop to 30 of its 83 stores across the U.K. and Ireland. The partnership will kick off Aug. 12, bringing nine Korean beauty brands including Some By Mi, Skin 1004, Neogen, Lagom, Chasin’ Rabbits and more to the retailer for the first time.
The assortment, coined the Soko Glam Best of K-beauty Edit, will also be available via Space NK’s website.
“It’s not just Korean skin care — it’s makeup, hair, body, fragrance — we’re going to have a rolling curation with Space NK and continuously introduce new brands and products throughout the seasons,” said Charlotte Cho, who cofounded New York-based Soko Glam with her husband, David Cho, in 2012. The e-tailer became known for its assortment of buzzy K-beauty brands, carrying products by Laneige and Innisfree prior to their more mainstream U.S. beauty retail forays at Sephora in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
As a next generation of innovative and generally affordable K-beauty brands gain prominence thanks to TikTok, Soko Glam again looks to play a role in making these brands accessible to a global audience. The Space NK partnership marks an aspect of this effort at a time when retailers like Sephora and Ulta are similarly bolstering their Korean beauty assortments, with the former most recently inaugurating TikTok heavy hitter Beauty of Joseon, while Ulta has launched a collective of eight up-and-coming brands — called K-beauty World — this month.
“K-beauty is exploding in the U.K. This isn’t K-beauty 2.0 — it’s a K-beauty takeover,” Cho said. “Everyone is carrying Korean beauty now — department stores, large retailers — but we’re taking an intentional approach. The products launching via Soko Glam at Space NK are mainly products that have been popular on Soko Glam for over 10 years; we have newer entrants, but those are tried-and-true as well.”
A rendering of Soko Glam at Space NK.
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The category is also “moving beyond skin care at a fast clip,” said Cho, adding that color cosmetics is the next big space to watch in K-beauty, evidenced by the growing popularity of brands like Daisique and Rom&nd. “The packaging and formulas are very unique and differentiated, and Korean brands are willing to invest in shades and development for deeper skin tones in order to do it right.”
K-beauty’s global retail push comes at a time when tariff uncertainty is at a high. Most recently, U.S. President Donald Trump set tariffs of 15 percent on South Korean imports. To date, Soko Glam has refrained from increasing prices as pressure mounts.
“Fifteen percent tariffs are obviously a hit to the Korean beauty market, because we are known for our accessibility in price, but they increase costs for all brands importing raw materials from Asia, not just K-beauty brands,” said Cho, adding, “Producing in Korea is still more affordable than doing so in the U.S.…if the Trump administration’s point was to bring more manufacturing to the U.S. — these tariffs are not going to move the needle for Korean beauty, at least.”
Among its 30 doors, Soko Glam’s shop-in-shop will be in Space NK’s soon-to-open, 4,600-square-foot London flagship in Oxford Circus. In 2024, Space NK had a turnover of 196.5 million pounds, and following its acquisition by Ulta in July for an undisclosed sum, will continue to be led by its existing management team, including chief executive officer Andy Lightfoot.
