Most of the other K-wellness brands looking to make it Stateside also play in supplements — unit sales of which were up more than 6 percent in the U.S. in 2025, per NIQ — as well as gut health and women’s health.
These emerging brands include Inertia, which is the number-one feminine care brand at Olive Young; Esther Wellness, a supplement brand best known for its dissolving, glutathione-infused oral strips; Lacto-fit, which offers probiotic powder sachets; Returnity, an at-home ear-seeding brand, and BB Lab, which makes chewy collagen jellies. There’s also Sleeping Bottle, known for its herbal — and melatonin-free — sleep beverages, and K-Nutra, whose products range from probiotic bedtime mints to bloat-reducing enzyme supplements.
“The Korean wellness ethos revolves around prevention. It is about balance, gut health, skin health and that inner-outer connection,” said Michelle Lee, chief marketing officer at Landing. “Basically, it looks a lot like where we’re seeing the modern wellness movement going.”
While beauty’s growth is tempering — Circana data shows that in 2025, U.S. unit sales grew just 3 percent in prestige and 2 percent in mass — wellness has only been accelerating. Globally, the wellness economy is expected to reach $9.8 trillion by 2029, up from $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to Global Wellness Institute, with the U.S. being both the largest and fastest-growing market.
Wellness is also booming in South Korea. Just this January,
Olive Young opened its first wellness-focused store, called Olive Better, in Seoul with products ranging from protein shakes to salads to feminine care and beyond. Last year, the retailer reported that its “inner beauty” category saw 55 percent year-over-year sales growth from January to May, driven in part by tourist purchases.
“Products and trends coming out of Korea not only have a cool factor, but also a halo of innovation and, generally, affordability,” Lee said. “And they’re great at user-friendly formats.”
K-Nutra’s K-collagen Soft Peach jelly sticks, priced at roughly $30 for a 30-pack.
Yami, a California-based e-tailer that sells consumer goods from all across Asia, has taken Olive Better’s opening as a cue to double down on its U.S. K-wellness business, which includes Foodology products, herbal hangover remedies by Jung Kwan Jang and more.
“We are aggressively expanding our K-wellness products and brands,” said Yami senior manager Betty Liu, adding that Korean brands currently make up about 15 percent of Yami’s total health sales, but the category is growing more than 50 percent year-over-year.
New York-based K-beauty e-tailer, Soko Glam, is similarly engaging in discussions with brands like BB Lab and Hustle & Heart in an aim to bring K-wellness to its assortment for the first time, said founder Charlotte Cho.
As far as brick-and-mortar expansion goes, most U.S. beauty retailers including Ulta, Walmart and Target are doubling down on both wellness and K-beauty, meaning these brands have options. The exception is Sephora, which shuttered its supplement business this year, though it remains to be seen whether the retailer’s newly inked deal with Olive Young could offer an opportunity to reenter the category at a later date.
“Korean wellness still represents a very early-stage category in the U.S., but the potential is significant,” said Chung Park, who is already working to bring brands including K-Nutra, Sleeping Bottle and Returnity to yet-unspecified retail shelves as early as this fall.