What We'd Actually Buy at Olive Young Right Now

The screenshot always arrives the same way. Nine products in a grid, a red arrow, someone's phone flash bouncing off a shelf. Is this list good?

Usually it's fine. It's just not ours. And it's almost never the list you'd get from the person restocking that aisle.

Here's the thing worth knowing before you build a basket. There are two Olive Youngs. There's the one that exists on video — a rotating cast of six or seven serums, sold out by noon, shot under the lights — and there's the one people here walk into on a Tuesday because the sunscreen ran out. Those two stores stock the same shelves and produce completely different lists.

We've put both side by side. Where they overlap, buy with confidence. Where they don't, we'll tell you which way we'd go and why.

If you need the mechanics first — which branch, how the 1+1 tags work, the tax refund — that's our Olive Young guide. This is the other half: what goes in the basket.

Quick answer

Five things, and you'd be done: Round Lab 1025 Dokdo Toner, Torriden Dive-In serum, Ma:nyo Pure Cleansing Oil, Round Lab Birch Juice sun cream, and Aestura Atobarrier365 cream.

Every one of those took first place in its category in Olive Young's 2025 awards — which are calculated from roughly 180 million actual purchases, not from a panel or a poll. They are, as literally as this gets, what Korea bought.

Add a box of pads and a hand cream if the suitcase allows. Then stop.

How we chose these

Olive Young publishes an annual awards list — 40 categories, 166 products in the 2025 edition. What makes it useful is the method: it's computed from purchase data, around 180 million transactions' worth. Not editors. Not votes. Receipts.

That gives you a list that is boring in the best way. Nothing wins on the strength of a launch campaign. Things win because people rebought them in November after buying them in March.

Then there's the second list, the one you already have: the products that travel on social. VT's Reedle Shot. Medicube's PDRN serum. Biodance's overnight collagen mask. Beauty of Joseon. These are real products with real people who love them, and we're not here to sneer at them. But their center of gravity is a feed, not an aisle — and several are now easier to get from your own country's Amazon than from a queue in Myeongdong.

The interesting part is the overlap. Round Lab wins at home and travels. Torriden took three categories in one year and is stocked half the world over. When something wins on both lists, that's the strongest signal in this entire store.

One more number, because it reframes the whole shop: 75% of the first-place categories went to small and mid-size companies. Not conglomerates. The Korean beauty aisle stopped being an Amorepacific-and-LG duopoly some time ago, and most guides written abroad haven't caught up.

The five we'd actually buy

Round Lab 1025 Dokdo Toner

Who it's for: almost anyone, which is exactly why it wins.

Why we like it: it is a big, cheap, watery bottle that does one job — put moisture back after cleansing — and does not try to also exfoliate, brighten, and fix your life. You use it with your hands, not a cotton pad, in quantities that would feel wasteful with anything pricier. That's the point. Round Lab took two categories in 2025; this was one of them.

Buy it if your current toner has an ingredient list longer than your arm and your skin has been complaining anyway.

Torriden Dive-In Low Molecular Hyaluronic Acid Serum

Who it's for: dehydrated skin, oily skin that's been over-stripped, anyone in an air-conditioned office.

Why we like it: it's the humectant layer without the tack. Torriden won three separate categories in 2025 — serum, masks, and a lip essence — which is unusual and suggests a brand that understands texture rather than one that got lucky with a campaign.

Buy it if you want one serum and don't want to think about it. If you want to think about it, our serum picks by skin type go deeper.

Ma:nyo Pure Cleansing Oil

Who it's for: anyone wearing sunscreen daily, which should be everyone.

Why we like it: it has now won the cleansing category five years running. Five. In a market that turns over this fast, that is a genuinely strange result, and the boring explanation is the correct one — it emulsifies cleanly, it doesn't sting, and people keep rebuying it.

Buy it if you've been removing sunscreen with a face wash and wondering why your skin feels congested.

Round Lab Birch Juice Moisturizing Sun Cream

Who it's for: normal to dry skin, and anyone who has given up on sunscreen because of how it feels.

Why we like it: this is the category where the price-to-quality gap between Korea and everywhere else is widest, and it isn't close. Goodal's heartleaf sun cream also placed in the same category if you skew oily.

Buy several. Sunscreen is the one thing where we'd tell you to overbuy. Our sunscreen guide by skin type narrows it down; why sunscreen counts as skincare here explains why it's treated as step one rather than an afterthought.

Aestura Atobarrier365 Cream

Who it's for: compromised, reactive, tight, flaky — skin that has been through something.

Why we like it: Aestura sits in the derm-adjacent tier that Koreans reach for when their skin is actually unhappy, rather than when they want it to glow. It won the cream category outright. It is not a fun purchase. It is the one people quietly repurchase.

Buy it if you've been over-exfoliating and won't admit it yet.

Four more, if there's room

Mediheal Madecassoside pads — first in the pad category. Heavy to ship, cheap to carry, and the most efficient way to turn a tired face around in ten minutes. See toner pads as mini masks for how we actually use them.

BEYOND Classic Hand Cream Deep Moisture — first in hand care. Under ₩10,000, looks more expensive than it is, and it is the single best souvenir-to-cost ratio in the building. Buy four. You will be glad on the flight home when someone asks what you brought them.

UNOVE Deep Damage Treatment EX — first in hair care four years running. If you've only ever thought of K-beauty as a face thing, this is the shelf to look at next; Korean hair and scalp care covers why the routine here starts at the scalp.

Fillimilli heating eyelash curler — first in beauty tools, and the one on this list nobody abroad has heard of. It's a small, unserious object that works better than it has any right to. We keep buying them as gifts.

And the snacks, genuinely

Olive Young's own snack line, Delight Project, wins awards in the food category and has broken into the top ten sellers to foreign shoppers. Protein chips, low-sugar things, rice snacks in the racks by the register.

We mention this because it's the most accurate signal about what this store is. It is not a beauty temple. It is a convenience-store-shaped errand that happens to be very good at skincare, and the most local thing you can do in one is leave with a serum and a bag of protein chips.

What we'd skip

The whole viral list, bought at once. Six actives from six brands, started the same week, in a different climate, on jet lag. If something goes wrong you will have no idea which one did it. Pick two things to change. That's it.

Anything already sitting on your own Amazon. Beauty of Joseon, COSRX, Anua, TIRTIR — widely distributed abroad now, sometimes at similar prices once you count the flight. Spend your one shopping window on the brands that haven't gone global yet. That's most of the store.

Starting a strong active with two days left. Retinal, high-percentage acids, needle-shot textures — none of that belongs in the last 48 hours of a trip. Buy it, take it home, start it on a normal Tuesday.

The number-one product, if you are not the average shopper. This is us undercutting our own list, and we mean it. These rankings measure volume, and volume follows the middle of the market. If your skin is very dry, very reactive, or very dark, the best-selling anything is not automatically yours. The awards are a shortlist, not a diagnosis.

Buying for other people's faces. A cream that suits a dry Chicago winter can be entirely wrong for someone else. What to buy for your skin type sorts that out before you're standing in the aisle.

The twenty-minute version

Walk in with your hands empty and lap the floor once. Then come back for one toner, one cleansing oil, one sunscreen, and one thing for whatever your skin is doing this month. If there's room, a box of pads and two hand creams.

That's six items and roughly twenty minutes, and it's a better basket than most nine-product screenshots.

You can come back. There's another branch two blocks away, and there always will be.

Read next

Working out where to spend the afternoon around it? Myeongdong or Seongsu. Want the mechanics of the store itself — branches, 1+1, tax refund? Olive Young, explained. Not sure what your skin needs yet? Start with the routine by skin type.

FAQ

Is the Olive Young awards list actually reliable?
As a popularity measure, yes — it's computed from roughly 180 million real purchases across 40 categories rather than from editorial picks. As a personal recommendation, treat it as a shortlist. It tells you what the Korean mass market rebuys, which is a genuinely useful signal and not the same thing as what suits you.

What should I buy at Olive Young if I only get one thing?
Sunscreen. It's the category where the quality-to-price gap with the rest of the world is largest, and the textures are the part people notice immediately when they get home.

Are the viral products worth buying in Seoul?
Some are good. The question is whether Seoul is where you should buy them — most of the globally viral K-beauty brands now ship internationally at comparable prices. The brands that are genuinely cheaper and easier here are the ones you haven't seen on your feed.

How many brands do foreign shoppers usually leave with?
More than you'd guess. Olive Young's own figures put 58% of foreign customers buying from six or more brands in a visit, and a third buying from ten or more. Which is a polite way of saying most people overbuy.

Do Koreans actually shop from these rankings?
Not consciously. But the rankings are downstream of what everyone repurchases — the toner your coworker keeps a spare of, the cleansing oil that's been in the bathroom for five years. That's why the list looks unglamorous. It's supposed to.