The Tamesis
Last April, beauty mogul Kylie Jenner posted a TikTok highlighting her favorite products after visiting Korean beauty brand Medicube’s LA Glowland pop-up store. “I’m obsessed with Booster Pro right now,” she told her 59.7 million followers in a video that has received more than 1.6 million likes. After her visit, the pop-up received 5,000 visitors in a week.
Jenner’s is just one of 670,000 posts on TikTok under the hashtag #Medicube, where creators and other high-profile fans (Hailey Bieber, Alix Earle, Molly-Mae Hague) show off the before-and-after results of using the brand’s popular products, like its zero-pore pads and Age-R devices, that have helped put Medicube at the forefront of K-beauty’s latest renaissance.
Medicube drove $22 million in sales during last year’s Amazon Prime Day alone; on Black Friday, it made more than $9 million on Amazon, TikTok Shop and its own website. In October, the company ranked No. 1 in the Ulta Beauty online skin care category and No. 3 overall in online and in-store sales, capping off its expansion into more than 1,400 Ultra Beauty stores in the United States.
“Many products already on the market in the UK and US tend to focus on more general skin concerns, such as moisturizing or anti-aging. However, many of our products focus on very specific skin care needs and cater to specific ingredients,” Kim Byung-hoon, founder and CEO of Medicube parent company APR, said in an interview fashion business Zoom from Seoul. “Because of this very targeted mix of ingredients, we think these products are really resonating with consumers.”
Medicube was founded in Seoul in 2017 and is part of APR Corp (a beauty technology group founded in 2014 that owns brands such as AprilSkin, Forment and Glam.D). Medicube started as a dermatology-led skin care brand and has since evolved into a device and skin care hybrid brand. Around 2022, the product began to go viral internationally as TikTok’s demand for at-home beauty technology accelerated and creators began documenting the visible, real-time effects of their popular products.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, APR reported consolidated revenue of approximately $440 million, a year-over-year increase of 124%. Overseas revenue increased 203% to approximately US$362 million, and its share of total sales increased from 58% to 87%. APR’s total revenue for the year was approximately US$1.2 billion, of which Medicube accounted for approximately US$1.1 billion, which means that the brand constitutes the vast majority of the group’s overall business and has become its main growth engine.
K-beauty first soared a decade ago before reaching market saturation, but it has enjoyed a second rise in the past two years as new players like Medicube entered the fray. Suddenly, Korean beauty brands are flooding news feeds and retail shelves, with traditional Western conglomerates and independent upstarts competing. Using similar active ingredients, Medicube has managed to cut through the noise by positioning itself as a solution to a problem — first with its Red line of products for acne-prone skin and later with its technology-driven Age-R device, which shifted the needle from topical treatment to cosmetic hardware. The brand isn’t just focused on viral waves, it’s designing for them, combining clinical positioning with high-priced beauty technology and an aggressive digital distribution strategy designed to translate attention into sustained scale.
But as K-beauty’s renaissance intensifies and competitors increasingly move into devices and clinical claims, the brand will need to strive for continued innovation and premium positioning in a market where trends and loyalties shift at algorithmic speeds.
Dermatology first, trends second
While K-beauty’s second wave in the West has been driven largely by dewy “glass skin” aesthetics and fierce attacks, Medicube has blazed a trail of its own. Rather than jumping on every viral trend and marketing message, the brand has built momentum around highly specific problem-solving products, most notably its Zero Pore Pads, a textured double-sided exfoliating pad pre-soaked in pore-refining actives, and its Collagen Overnight Wrap Mask, designed to seal in ingredients overnight for visibly enhanced firming effects. The thread throughout is not trending engagement, but targeted results: clear focus, measurable results, and repeatable routines that can be easily shared online.
