Ulta Beauty is going all-in on Korean hair care.
The retailer has added an inaugural 13 brands in the category to its assortment, roughly half of which are available strictly via Ulta’s new online marketplace, while six others are available online now and will enter more than 600 doors in April.
The in-store assortment includes hair essences and hydrating mists from Narka; PDRN and exosome scalp serums from Lilyeve, plus other offerings from La’dor, Healing Bird, Refilled and Growus, which are all priced under $40 and focus on innovative formats and ingredients.
Most of these brands are still relatively up-and-coming in South Korea, and in bringing them Stateside in one fell swoop, Ulta looks to be a first-mover in the fast-growing Korean hair care category.
“With skin care, the U.S. was a bit behind in bringing all of the viral brands [to retail], but in hair care, we’re really moving in lockstep with what’s going on in Korea,” said Sarah Chung Park, founder and chief executive officer of Landing International, a vendor of Ulta’s for this launch and others.
She added that at Olive Young, which is Korea’s largest beauty retailer and another Landing partner, hair care purchases by tourists grew 212 percent in 2025 versus the year prior.
La’dor
Courtesy
“At Ulta, there are going to be formula innovations not available among U.S. brands; products that treat the scalp as an extension of the skin, and a lot of innovation in terms of componentry,” said Chung Park, referencing Narka’s jelly dry shampoo wands and Lilyeve’s bristle-brush serum applicators as examples of the latter.
On average, the brands launching in Ulta stores are seeing roughly 150 percent year-over-year growth, though Lilyeve grew even faster in 2025 to $30 million, up from $8.6 million the year prior. Brands chosen to launch via Ulta Beauty Marketplace are more nascent and include Truezyme; 8grow; Dryope; Hair+; Kundal, and Elizavecca.
“It’s a great testing ground,” said Shianna Davey, Ulta’s vice president of hair care merchandising, of Ulta Beauty Marketplace, which is integrated with the rest of the retailer’s online assortment, though products are labeled as being fulfilled by the brand versus Ulta itself. “It’s another extension to the Ulta guest, and if we are getting some great reads [on a product], we have the ability to bring it deeper in our Ulta system, through stores or more omnichannel [placements].”
Ulta has been carrying K-beauty brands like CosRX and Thank You Farmer since the late 2010s, and in 2024 began beefing up its assortment with newer brands like Anua, Medicube, Fwee and Rom&nd. Other retailers have similarly made investments in K-beauty during the timeframe, with Sephora launching skin care brands Beauty of Joseon and Aestura last year, and inking an Olive Young partnership that will bring a wider, curated K-beauty assortment to the retailer this fall.
In Korean hair care, Sephora has so far launched Unove, whose under-$30 range is known for its “glass hair” effect, and will launch Dr. Groot this spring, which is so far the most widely known K-hair care brand in the U.S. thanks to its breakout success on TikTok Shop, where it has sold more than 400,000 units of its — primarily hair growth — products to date.
While many of Ulta’s new hair brands sell via Olive Young in South Korea, they will for the time being be exclusive to Ulta in the U.S. And with the retailer debuting its own TikTok Shop storefront this month, Davey confirmed that K-hair care will soon be integrated into that assortment. (Ulta’s TikTok Shop store sold just over 1,700 units in roughly its first week, and so far features brands like Anua, Noyz, Snif and Shakira’s Isima.)
“K-beauty has moved past novelty status. Initially, we saw a younger guest looking to come in and discover the latest trends they saw on social media, but K-beauty is now resonating across age groups. It’s a consistent driver of guest interest, and we’re just getting started in the [K-hair care] category,” Davey said.
Healing Bird
The strategic advantage of K-hair care, too, is that “there’s so much differentiation among the products, whereas in skin care now, there’s a bit of saturation with products that are very similar,” Chung Park said. Indeed, according to 2025 data from the Korean Intellectual Property Office, South Korea accounts for more than 40 percent of all hair loss cosmetics patents filed globally in the last two decades.
In the U.S., K-beauty sales reached $2.4 billion in 2025, up 46.7 percent versus the year prior, per NIQ. Facial skin care is the biggest category, but hair care is a top-grower.
Ulta’s increased investment in K-beauty, combined with its nascent efforts on TikTok Shop and the launch of Ulta Beauty Marketplace, are all indicative of the mounting need for beauty retailers to diversify channels and strategies as e-commerce grows, surpassing 50 percent of the beauty business for the first time last year, per NIQ.
“We’re not stopping — we’re testing everything out,” Davey said.
