PARIS — As beauty keeps globetrotting like never before, the spotlight in 2026 will shine on various geographies, including South Korea, the Middle East and India.
South Korea remains firmly in beauty experts’ sites, as its second K-wave keeps swelling. This comes after bursting on to the scene about a decade ago, influencing beauty formulation and packaging everywhere. Now, over the past two years, K-beauty products have been lapping the globe again.
“The second wave is very, very strong,” said one industry insider. “Brands like Medicube, Beauty of Joseon do super well.”
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K-beauty will keep flexing, with numerous brands considering or preparing initial public offerings in South Korea.
Joseon owner Goodai Global, for instance, is moving forward with IPO plans set for this year, while targeting a trillion won valuation, according to industry reports. And CJ Olive Young, a major K-beauty retailer, is also said to be a prime IPO candidate, among others, with plans to open in the U.S, too.
Such IPOs can pack a major punch. Medicube parent Apr Corp. IPOed in early February 2024, and since then its stock has risen about 290 percent.
The Middle East will also keep making waves when it comes to beauty. International industry experts realize increasingly that Arabian beauty — especially fragrance, olfactive ingredients and craft — resonates not only at home but abroad, too.
A prime example is Omani-based niche fragrance brand Amouage, in which L’Oréal took a minority stake early last year. Its business keeps gaining strongly, having registered nine-month 2025 sales of $300 million, up 73 percent on-year.
Another is Kayali, the super-viral, United Arab Emirates-based fragrance brand launched in 2018 by influencer Mona Kattan.
The Middle East beauty market is already sizable — $18.57 billion in 2024 — and growing. It is projected to reach $25.45 billion in 2033, representing a compound annual growth rate of 3.6 percent over the period, according to Market Data Forecast.
Industry experts believe the rise of Middle Eastern beauty will extend beyond the perfume category. The region has many dynamic makeup brands, for example.
The most well-known today internationally is Huda Beauty, the brainchild of Huda Kattan that launched in 2013. Among others that are rising are Bassam Fattouh Cosmetics, which was started by the Lebanese celebrity makeup artist of that name. He has a fan base of 1.1 million on Instagram.
Hindash Cosmetics is another. It was started by Mohammed Hindash, a makeup artist and painter based in Dubai. He garners 2 million Insta followers.
Such brands propose a color cosmetics offer somewhat different to that of Western makeup brands, an industry expert said.
Meanwhile, an emerging geographic frontier for beauty in 2026 is India. It comprises almost 20 percent of the world’s population, 900 million of whom are younger than 35 years old. Yet, the country generates less than 3 percent of global fragrance market sales.
But that’s expected to change rapidly, as the category’s sales increase more than 15 percent yearly. Quick commerce — or Q-commerce — allowing for online shoppers to get products delivered in major Indian cities in as little as eight minutes, has seen a rapid rise in India. Among the key players fueling such commerce are Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy, which make fragrance and cosmetics an easier get.
“India rewards brands and people that tune into the rituals it already has, rather than brands which try to impose what it doesn’t have already,” said Paul Austin, founder of Austin Advisory Group, at the 2025 WWD Beauty Inc Catalysts conference in November 2025.
Homegrown Indian brands, such as Bombay Perfumery and Forest Essentials, are in the scopes of beauty experts. And no doubt others are swiftly on the rise.