Exclusive: Sephora Partners with Olive Young
On Tuesday, Sephora announced a partnership with Olive Young, bringing Korea’s largest beauty retailer’s assortment into Sephora stores in North America and Southeast Asia, The Business of Beauty can exclusively reveal. The partnership, which rolls out in store and online in fall 2026, will see Olive Young displays pop up in 650 Sephora doors in the US and Canada, as well as all of the retailer’s 48 doors across Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. The initiative will also expand to the Middle East, UK and Australia in 2027.But its primary function is to serve as a pipeline linking Olive Young’s brand discovery and beauty innovation to the LVMH-owned retailer’s own array of Korean brands, which spawned in 2010 as K-beauty’s first wave hit international shores. Olive Young’s curation, paired with Sephora’s customer service and omnichannel sales capabilities, will create an “unrivalled” shopping experience, Sephora chief merchandising officer Priya Ventakesh said in a statement. The partnership will focus primarily on skincare, though other categories may be included in the future. The news comes amid K-beauty’s second wave, which has seen international retailers stocking up on Korean brands and homegrown conglomerates including APR Corporation and Goodai Global unseat incumbents like Coty and Shiseido in beauty’s world order. It’s the first partnership of its kind for Olive Young, whose chief strategy officer Youngah Lee said in a statement advances the Korean retailer’s “global expansion strategy.” Olive Young will continue to open its own stores in Los Angeles in 2026, BoF reported. In addition to its massive, gamified shopping experience, the retailer is a first mover on trending treatments like salmon sperm-extracted PDRN.But the deal is more than a merchandising coup for Sephora, which tried to enter Korea unsuccessfully in 2019 and has more recently turbocharged its own global strategy, acquiring retailers like Feelunique in the UK and inking partnerships with Reliance Retail’s Tira Beauty in India and the Chalhoub Group in the Middle East. As the world’s most prominent beauty retailer, with the support of the world’s largest luxury conglomerate, Sephora is ensuring its future as the world’s most important beauty broker and brand builder. But the retailer hasn’t had an easy time cracking all local markets. Sephora previously entered Korea in 2019, but pulled out of the country in 2024, shuttering its five stores — due in large part to competition from Olive Young, which operates over 1,300 Korean doors. Sephora’s growth in other key markets like India and Australia has been hamstrung by more entrenched local players, like Nykaa and Mecca, which rule their home turf even if their own international expansions look less likely. A more urgent competitor is Ulta Beauty, which saw its international footprint triple in 2025 with the acquisition of UK retailer Space NK and the opening of its first stores in Mexico and the Middle East via agreements with the Axo and Alshaya Groups, respectively. The US beauty retailer also launched a robust assortment of K-beauty brands like Sungboon Editor and Rom&nd in July 2025, through a partnership with Landing International, and scored exclusives with APR Corp’s Medicube and Goodai Global’s Tirtir. Sephora has offered K-beauty since 2010, stocking first-wave Korean brands like Dr. Jart as well as a selection of K-inspired lines like Glow Recipe. It recently onboarded viral labels like Aestura and Beauty of Joseon in 2025, bringing its total K-beauty brand count to 12. But its existing K-beauty offerings will be distinct from the Olive Young partnership, which is focused on new brands and innovations, a spokesperson said.The partnership will be accompanied by dedicated programming, including consumer events, multibrand campaigns and a new social series. K-beauty will also feature prominently at this year’s Sephoria, which heads to Los Angeles in late March 2026. Rachael Griffiths contributed reporting.Sign up to The Business of Beauty newsletter, your complimentary, must-read source for the day’s most important beauty and wellness news and analysis.
