The Grand Narrative

Do Korean women tend to wear more cosmetics than their Western counterparts?

Had the question ever been posed, then I’d always have replied with an emphatic yes, one of my first and most vivid memories of Jinju (진주) being the faces of its ubiquitous coffee girls, almost clown-like in their blankness and painted excess.  Naturally those memories have literally colored my perceptions of Korean women’s use of cosmetics ever since, but I’ve still yet to see any evidence to dissuade me that Korean women aren’t indeed both consummate users and abusers of them, their avoidance of the sun and use of whitening cosmetics, for instance, being so great that they have among the lowest vitamin-D levels in the world, an inconvenient truth that is surely not explained merely by them tending to have darker skins than Caucasians.

What does explain it though? Earlier, I’ve approached that question via the role of women’s bodies in Neo-Confucianism, and then how this has manifested itself in postwar Korean consumerism: not irrelevant by any means, but probably not exactly what would go through Korean women’s minds as they put on cosmetics in the morning either. Instead, much more likely is something akin to this recent Bank of England memo to its female employees, detailing how they should dress:

“Look professional, not fashionable; be careful with perfume; always wear a heel of some sort – maximum 2 inches; always wear some sort of makeup – even if it’s just lipstick.” Shoes and skirt must be the same color. No-no’s include ankle chains – “professional, but not the one you want to be associated with;” white high heels; overstuffed handbags; an overload of rings, and double-pierced ears.

Which has naturally been creating a storm in feminist blogs, although in the end the bank may well have been misinterpreted (see here and here). But by virtue of it being newsworthy, to me this is the Western exception that proves the Korean rule, for a Korean friend who’s worked in Korean banks for over ten years has mentioned that wearing cosmetics has been mandatory for women at all of them, the consequences of not doing so unspecified but still so dire as to deter any would-be rebels from ever appearing at work au naturel. True, she was more often than not a teller, to whom presentation does matter to a certain extent, but I’d be surprised if similar de facto rules didn’t also exist at readers’ workplaces in other industries? For instance, while cosmetics would be somewhat lost on the acne-faced 13-18 year olds that form my own after-school institute’s “clients,” that still doesn’t stop my female colleagues from spending a not trivial amount of time each day checking their appearances and reapplying their make-up at their desks in between classes. Moreover, while it’s true that the options for the single ones are limited when they spend 12 hours a day and 6 days a week at their workplace, Korean men that work at institutes are still very low on the totem pole of desirable mates.

I bring this subject up to provide some context to the original inspiration for this post, which was my noticing the lavish praise the Korean English-language media has dishing on the Korean cosmetics industry in recent months, the Korea Times for instance: quoting industry analysts back in December who predicted robust growth despite the economic downturn; giving a great deal of space to an interview of CEO Seong Ki-ryeong of new Korean brand The Face Shop in January, who is confident about his company’s overseas expansion plans; and finally mentioning the increasing status and sophistication of domestic brands earlier this month, the leading one of which – Amore Pacific – recently usurped Chanel as prestigious Lotte Department Store’s biggest seller, to all of which can be added the Chosun Ilbo’s report on Monday that sales of male grooming products are increasing despite the recession too. How skeptical should we be of reports such as these in light of that information that my friend passed on to me?

Actually, it makes me more inclined to believe them. While it’s true that that Korean English-language media is notorious for advertorials for instance, and that those with a vested interest in the expansion of any industry are hardly the most reliable sources on the current prospects for it, from what I’ve seen of media coverage of the effects of the recession on cosmetic and fashion industries in the international media so far, then – as you might have guessed – I can say without a doubt that both flaws are hardly confined to Korea. In fact, it’s a relief to not read about the so-called “The Lipstick Index” in the latter, the originator of which makes the claim that lipstick sales are inversely-related to (or at worst immune to) economic conditions. In reality though, as the following Economist article makes clear, this is merely fodder for curious slice-of-life articles to distract readers from the recession. Some excerpts:

Believers in the lipstick theory trace the phenomenon back to the Depression, when cosmetic sales increased by 25%, despite the convulsing economy. Some, like Dhaval Joshi of RAB Capital, an investment-management firm, point out that employment in the cosmetics industry has been known to rise as overall employment falls, suggesting that demand for cosmetics increases when consumer confidence is low….

Not everyone is convinced. Reliable historical figures on lipstick sales are hard to find, and most lipstick believers can only point to isolated, anecdotal examples as evidence of the larger phenomenon. Data collected by Kline & Company, a market-research group, show that lipstick sales sometimes increase during times of economic distress, but have also been known to grow during periods of prosperity (see chart). In other words, there is no clear correlation.

Lipstick sales are merely the latest example of a single measure that has been seized upon because it supposedly reflects economic confidence, or lack of it. Hemlines, alcohol consumption, laxative sales and even who wins the Super Bowl have all been proposed as ways to chart recessions, with varying degrees of success. So is the lipstick index dead?

Karen Grant of the NPD Group, a market-research firm, suggests that it might make more sense to look at a wider “beauty index”, rather than lipstick alone, because she thinks it is beauty as a category that holds up well in recessions, whereas sub-categories (such as lipstick) tend to go in and out of style….

Let’s consider that wider “beauty index” then, or at least what form it may take in Korea. Presumably, given those unofficial rules for women’s cosmetics as mentioned earlier, then sales of those may well remain steady here, that first Korea Times article I linked to for instance, mentioning that:

During the onset of the financial crisis in 1998, the nation’s economy contracted 6.9 percent with private spending down 13.4 percent but the cosmetics industry escaped virtually unscathed with a 0.2 percent contraction.

Also, while premium brands have been hardest hit worldwide, it is also true that those consumers already inclined to spend a little extra on perceived better-than average brands and/or natural and organic cosmetics are hardly likely to stop doing so now, and so in this sense rapidly improving, now middle of the range Korean brands like The Face Shop are probably best placed to weather the storm. Moreover, a useful, albeit perhaps obvious lesson for all industries that I’ve gained from reading all of those articles, is that the temptation to lower prices for the sake of sales must be tempered by the knowledge that the brand might find it difficult to shake off a “cheap” image once the recession is over.

But actually I’m not interested in the industry and league table of brands and sales per se, more in the (possible) effects of the recession on the grooming habits and ultimately body images of both sexes. And while the most obvious may be that a renewed premium is placed on personal attractiveness as a minor but not insignificant means of getting and/or retaining a job, I’d argue that given all the above then for Korean women at least there appears to be limited possibilities beyond what they’re actually already doing. One exception though, may be the increased wearing of deodorant, although in fact men represent much more of a untapped market in that regard. So too, do they of cosmetics in general, my realizing in hindsight as I type this that in most of my posts on recent commercials and advertisements for products aimed at men (see here, here, and here for example) I pointed out that they were actually the first of their kind.

Ultimately then, this recession may in fact entail greater changes for Korean men’s body images than women’s, arguably deepening and solidifying those already induced by the newly competitive job market and especially women’s changed preferences for men that came about as a result of the IMF Crisis of 1997-98 (the subject of my coming thesis for those of you that don’t know). In hindsight though, I may have previously exaggerated the extent of changes resulting from that, as although it undoubtedly gave a powerful boost to the notion that there were alternatives to the previous ideal of a male as a domineering but able bread-winner, you don’t need to spend much time here to note that the age-groups of men most directly affected by events then are still not exactly at the vanguard of Korean Metrosexuality now.

Instead, it’s those men in their twenties that are: of course, partially because they – and only they – have the time and inclination, but surely also because they’re the first generation of Korean men to grow up primarily with, say, fresh-faced, fashion-conscious boy-bands as their role models, one manifestation of Korean women’s new ideals for men? Recall that Korea only began to qualitatively democratize just a few years earlier upon the election of its first civilian president in 1993, and I dare say that there was little scope for any singers with appearances like current flavor of the month Ajoo (노아주) under the previous military dictatorships:

Sorely tempting as it is for me personally to revisit my thesis topic though, for the sake of my long term-readers already familiar with it then it’s probably best if I finish that discussion sooner rather than later.  On that note then, there are my own predictions on the effects on the recession on the Korean cosmetics industry and on the ways in which it may change the ways in which Korean women and especially men think about their appearances, but I still gladly open the floor to any others, for I confess that unfortunately my heterosexuality somewhat gets in the way of the focus of my studies sometimes!

( Image sources: 1) aRyaNa, 2) PopSeoul!, 3) DramaBeans, 4) AllKpop )