The popular Korean beauty brand Innisfree opened its first U.S flagship store at Union Square in Manhattan, in New York on September 15.

The two-story building, located on a 157 square-meter site, sells 900 products, including 150 localized products sold exclusively in the US. From innovative skincare and cosmetics, innisfree is adding several new shades, running from fair, light hues to deeper browns, in hopes that everyone can find a good fit. The cushion foundation also comes with 100 different compact cases to choose from.

Photo courtesy Amorepacific Group

Innisfree, one of the fastest-growing brands in the Amorepacific Group, is a Korea’s budget beauty brand based on Jeju Island. Innisfree skin care products are formulated with an average of 80% naturally derived ingredients responsibly sourced from the pure and clean Jeju island, Korea.

The Union Square location features two levels including the main store floor and a private mezzanine level that houses make-up artist masterclasses, K-beauty skin care training as well as green living classes. At 1,700 square feet of the store, the main floor features a 21-foot-tall living green wall to illustrate the brand’s Jeju Island heritage, from where Innisfree responsibly sources most of its ingredients including Green Tea from 350 acres of USDA organic-certified green tea farms.

As part of their commitment to preserving the purity of Jeju Island and the environment as a whole, innisfree has partnered with Terracycle for an Eco-Recycling program that encourages people to drop off their innisfree empties to the store to earn points for the loyalty program.

K-Beauty products have become increasingly popular all over the world. Innisfree plans to expand across the US in the coming years with an aim to “open five to eight stores over the next year in the New York, Long Island, and New Jersey area, then expand to Los Angeles and San Francisco after that.”

“While our new e-commerce site will serve the entire country, we will focus the next 18 months on establishing our store presence in New York City, with ambitious expansion plans for the rest of the country to follow,” said Julien Bouzitat, Vice President and General Manager of innisfree USA regarding the US launch of the brand, which has opened over 1,600 stores in Asia since its creation in 2000.

Photo courtesy Amorepacific Group

Korean budget beauty brand Innisfree, took its name from a poem by Irish poet W. B. Yeats.

The Innisfree’s website explains: “Our name is inspired by William Butler Yeats’ ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, a lyrical poem that expresses a longing to leave behind urban life for a beautiful peaceful island, where you can enjoy the fruits of nature’s abundance.”

The New York launch comes as the Korea’s No.1 beauty giant is seeking to reduce its dependency on the Chinese market where its sales were severely hit amid the prolonged diplomatic tension between Seoul and Beijing over the deployment of the THAAD missile system. In the first half of this year, its Chinese sales dropped 6.1 percent to 3.26 trillion won (US$2.89 billion) and its operating profit plunged 30.2 percent to 508.9 billion won. In addition, the domestic markets are not that hopeful either.

While Amorepacific Group is searching for a breakthrough to boost sales, New York is emerging as what’s called a post-china potential market.

Photo courtesy Amorepacific Group