A line stretching more than 100 metres formed outside Westfield Century City on Saturday as CJ Olive Young unveiled its second U.S. store — the most pointed signal yet that Korean beauty is moving from enthusiast niche to luxury-adjacent mainstream, planting its flag a short drive from Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills.
The 250-square-metre store, which the company calls an "expansion-type" format targeting premium consumers and international tourists, opened with volume-based discounts through June 26, complimentary tote bags, and a sampling collaboration with California's Chamberlain Coffee. CEO Lee Sun-Jung has confirmed a third U.S. location — at Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance — set for Fall 2026, with the East Coast and American South identified as subsequent targets.
From Pasadena to Century City: Shifting the Target Demographic
The Pasadena flagship, which opened in May 2026, primarily served consumers already familiar with K-beauty and generated overnight camp-outs that "wrapped around multiple city blocks." The Century City store is positioned differently: its proximity to Beverly Hills and Bel-Air is deliberate, aimed at capturing shoppers who may be encountering Olive Young for the first time.
"We aim to build a loyal Olive Young customer base in the U.S. through differentiated services, member benefits and in-store experiences," the company said in a statement accompanying the opening.
AI Skin Scans and Specialty Zones
The Century City store deploys Olive Young's "Skin Scan" service, which analyses a customer's skin condition on-site and generates personalised product recommendations — positioning the retailer closer to a tech-enabled beauty clinic than a conventional cosmetics counter. A similar scalp-assessment service rounds out the diagnostic offering.
Inside, the skincare section is 1.5 times larger than a typical Olive Young location in South Korea, reflecting demand patterns among U.S. consumers skewed toward skincare over colour cosmetics. Specialty zones include The Boost and Glow Bar, dedicated to serums and essences, and The Prep Bar, covering toners and sun-care products. A separate area showcases home beauty devices — a category gaining rapid traction in the U.S. as consumers migrate from professional clinics to at-home alternatives.
A USD 2 Billion Market Growing at 37%
The expansion coincides with an acceleration in U.S. K-beauty demand. The U.S. K-beauty market reached USD 2 billion in 2025, growing 37% year-on-year — a pace that outstrips the broader U.S. beauty market and has drawn intensified interest from Sephora, Ulta Beauty, and international brands seeking to add Korean product lines.
Olive Young, which operates more than 1,400 stores across South Korea, carries procurement scale and brand relationships that smaller rivals lack. The offline experiential format — discovery-oriented zoning, in-store diagnostics, and interactive sampling — is designed to convert first-time browsers into repeat members through the company's O.Y. Members loyalty programme.
CJ Corp's Internationalisation Bet
Olive Young is the flagship retail brand of CJ Corp (001040.KS), the South Korean conglomerate whose portfolio spans food (Bibigo), entertainment (CJ ENM), and logistics (CJ Logistics). The U.S. beauty push complements CJ's broader globalisation drive: Bibigo has entered mainstream American grocery shelves, while CJ ENM has scaled its streaming footprint. While CJ Olive Young is not independently listed, its overseas performance milestones have tracked closely with CJ Corp's share sentiment in recent quarters.
The Century City opening comes as Korean consumer brands — from cosmetics to instant noodles and streaming content — increasingly target the U.S. as a primary growth vector rather than a secondary export market.
Sources: Korea Herald, Seoul Economic Daily (English), Korea Daily, Business of Fashion
