Korean Makeup and Haircare Brands Going Viral on TikTok

Scroll TikTok Shop for more than five minutes and you’ll hit a haul video of someone swatching a rom&nd tint against their wrist, or squeezing a cloudy-looking Mise en Scene treatment through wet hair. Skincare used to be the whole K-beauty story. In 2026, it’s just the opening act.

Quick answers

• Korean makeup brands like rom&nd, Peripera, and Clio are the fastest-growing K-beauty category on TikTok Shop as of 2026, overtaking the skincare-only hauls that dominated a few years earlier.
• On TikTok Shop’s US hair care sales chart for July 2026, the Korean names that actually rank are medicube (No. 3) and Dr. Groot (No. 7); Mise en Scene, Ryo, and Elastine fill “glass hair” videos but sit outside that top 20 (Avenue Z).
• TikTok Shop’s live-selling format is the main distribution engine, letting Korean beauty brands sell directly to overseas buyers without a US retail deal first.

The Korean Makeup and Haircare Brands on TikTok Worth Watching in 2026

rom&nd, Peripera, Clio, and Espoir are the makeup names showing up most often in TikTok Shop’s Korean beauty storefronts this year, while on the haircare side the sellers that make TikTok Shop’s monthly top 20 are medicube and Dr. Groot, with Mise en Scene, Ryo, and Elastine circulating mostly in creator videos rather than in the sales chart (Avenue Z, July 2026 ranking). None of these are new companies — most have sold in Korean drugstores like Olive Young for over a decade — but their second life as TikTok creator favorites is a distinctly 2026 phenomenon. What changed isn’t the product, it’s the distribution: a 15-second video of someone applying a Peripera ink tint now reaches more first-time buyers than a decade of offline retail ever did.

Why Is K-Beauty Moving Beyond Skincare?

Skincare got Korea into the global beauty conversation, but it’s also the most crowded shelf — every brand has a version of a snail-mucin serum or a cica cream by now. Makeup and haircare are where Korean formulation habits (lightweight textures, gradient color, ingredient-forward marketing) still feel genuinely different from what’s already on Western shelves. Walk into the Olive Young in Hongdae and the split is visible on the shop floor: the skincare aisle is packed with tourists comparing near-identical serums, while the makeup counter next to it is where the actual impulse buying happens now.

Which Makeup Products Are Actually Trending?

Lip tints lead the pack — rom&nd’s Zero Matte and Juicy Lasting lines and Peripera’s Ink the Airy Velvet have both become recurring TikTok Shop bestsellers since 2025, largely because a tint swatch video performs better than a multi-step skincare routine on a short-form feed. Clio’s Kill Cover cushion foundation and Espoir’s Pro Tailor line have followed a similar path, benefiting from creators who compare Korean cushion formulas against Western liquid foundations side by side.

What Hair Care Brands Are Trending on TikTok in the US in 2026?

In TikTok Shop’s US hair care top 20 for July 2026, two of the twenty are Korean: medicube at No. 3 (its US store, a brand better known for skincare devices) and Dr. Groot at No. 7, a scalp-care line carried by the hair-growth wave (Avenue Z; WWD). Mise en Scene, Ryo, and Elastine appear constantly in “glass hair” hauls and scalp-care tutorials, but they do not make that sales ranking, so treat them as content favorites rather than proven best-sellers. “Glass hair” — the ultra-smooth, high-shine look popularized by Korean idols — has pulled haircare into the same spotlight makeup enjoys. Mise en Scene’s Perfect Serum and Ryo’s herbal shampoo lines get credited constantly in glass-hair tutorials, and rice-water and fermented-ingredient formulas have become a shorthand marketing hook the way “snail mucin” was for skincare a few years back. Scalp care, treated almost as an afterthought in Western haircare, is its own category in Korean routines — you’ll find dedicated scalp scalers and tonics from Elastine and Ryo sitting next to the shampoo, not bundled into it. The gap between the two lists is the real story: the brands creators tag in tutorials and the brands that top the sales chart are not the same names.

How Big a Role Does TikTok Shop Play?

TikTok Shop’s live-selling format — a creator demonstrating a product in real time while viewers buy on the spot — has become the main channel Korean makeup and haircare brands use to reach buyers outside Asia without first landing a Sephora or Ulta deal. Industry trackers have flagged Korean beauty as one of TikTok Shop’s fastest-growing categories since the platform’s US shopping features expanded in 2024, and the makeup and haircare share of that growth has been catching up to skincare fast in 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What Korean makeup brands are popular on TikTok right now?

rom&nd, Peripera, Clio, and Espoir are the names that show up most often in 2026 TikTok Shop hauls, mainly through lip tint and cushion foundation content.

Q: Are the brands in glass hair videos the same ones that sell best on TikTok Shop?

On the sales side, the Korean hair care names in TikTok Shop’s July 2026 US top 20 are medicube (No. 3) and Dr. Groot (No. 7); on the content side, Mise en Scene, Ryo, and Elastine carry the “glass hair” tutorials and the scalp-care step that Western routines usually skip. Rice-water and fermented-ingredient formulas are the recurring hook in those videos, even where the sales chart tells a different story.

Q: Is Korean haircare different from Korean skincare marketing?

Yes — haircare leans on scalp-specific products (scalers, tonics) as a separate step, while skincare marketing tends to bundle everything into one routine narrative.

Q: Why is TikTok Shop important for Korean beauty brands specifically?

It lets brands sell directly to overseas buyers through creator livestreams, skipping the need for a Western retail partnership before reaching international customers.

Q: Which Korean beauty products go viral on TikTok?

In 2026 hauls, Peripera’s Ink the Airy Velvet tints and Mise en Scene’s Perfect Serum are the products creators reshare most, while the Korean hair care brands that actually rank in TikTok Shop’s US sales chart (July 2026) are medicube and Dr. Groot.

Q: What are the K-beauty trends on TikTok in 2026?

Three trends are driving the conversation in 2026: lip-tint swatch hauls, “glass hair” tutorials built around rice-water and herbal treatments, and TikTok Shop livestreams that let Korean brands sell directly to buyers who’d never walk into an Olive Young.

The skincare-first version of K-beauty isn’t going away, but it’s no longer the only story worth telling. If you’re only watching the serum aisle, you’re missing where Korean beauty is actually growing in 2026.