South Korea: 7 places in Garosu-gil that makeup lovers HAVE to visit

7 places in Garosu-gil that makeup lovers HAVE to visit

By One More Trip, Oct. 30, 2017

Garosu-gil: the famous area that's packed with stylish clothing shops, cool cafes, great restaurants, and most importantly, SO many makeup stores!

So, this one’s for all the makeup lovers! The 7 places (and more!) that you can’t miss when you go to Garosu-gil, divided into three categories: the road shops, amazing flagship stores, and even a cosmetics museum! Take a trip down Garosu-gil with us and you’ll surely find places you'll want to visit the next time you’re there.

1. The Road Shops

At Garosu-gil you can quite literally find almost every Korean road shop makeup brand. And they’re all very conveniently located on the same street! While some stores on Garosu-gil are not much different from their other stores around town, there are some that have taken their store from just a shop to a whole experience! At Skinfood, for example, you’ll find the bright yellow interior decorated with beautiful (fake) flowers and the makeup set up in a way that makes you wonder if you’re still in a makeup store or in a wonderful sweets shop. There’s actually a Skinfood Café upstairs so if you get a craving for something sweet, just head over to the second floor. Innisfree’s exterior, with the ever-changing display of beautiful nature videos and a plant-covered wall would be a great place to take some outfit shots!

Etude House has made their Garosu-gil shop an actual experience space. At the Color Factory, you can find out what tones and colors suit you best, and you can even get a lipstick shade made on the spot that’s perfect just for you!

2. Flagship Stores

When you’ve stopped by all the smaller road shops, take a moment and step into the highly stylized makeup and skin care companies’ flagship stores. The following companies have used different concepts to design whole buildings-worth of space into an amazing experience that can’t be missed.

Jung Saem Mool

At Jung Saem Mool you’ll find so much more than a shop! The outside of the store is already amazing in design. There’s a cool patio with various design elements and a sitting space where you can enjoy a refreshing drink (from the café inside the store!) in the summer. You can clearly see that the designers have thought of every little detail- just look at the cushion foundation puff-shaped pillows in the seating area! Inside the store you can, of course, find all the makeup products, but you can also enjoy some art in the atelier on the second floor and take a lot of Instagram-worthy photos.

3CE Cinema

This movie-themed 3CE store is amazing for photo opportunities. The interior is cleverly designed to look like the inside of a cinema and downstairs you can also find a wonderful vintage-themed salon to take pictures in. After shopping, you can get your name (or whatever other word you want) engraved into your 3CE product packages- what a great souvenir to remember Seoul by or to give to friends as gifts!

Dr. Jart

When you enter the Dr. Jart flagship store, you’ll feel like you’re in a uber cool sci-fi movie laboratory. There’s various lab equipment, screens, and interesting machines all around the first floor. There’s even a magical machine where you can input your name, your skin issues, and how you’re feeling these days and out will come your own personal skin type analysis receipt! You can take this receipt to the “pharmacy” and they will give you a personalized prescription that you can take upstairs to the store to find the matching products for your specific skin problems. You also get cute little pill-shaped stickers in your prescription envelope!

Upstairs you will find a number of helpful shop assistants who will take a look at your prescription and explain everything you want to know about the products you’ve been recommended.

3. Coreana Cosmetics Museum (free admission with Discover Seoul Pass)

When you’re all shopped out, you might want to take a short walk to the Coreana Cosmetics Museum nearby for a relaxing and visually-pleasing history excursion. At the museum you can learn about the long history of cosmetics and skincare in Korea (and elsewhere). You can take a look at what kinds of natural ingredients were used to make skin care and color makeup before modern times. Using red pepper for lip colors was totally a thing back then! You can even try washing your hands with mung bean powder at the museum.

The exhibition space also features a variety of beautiful and intricate cosmetics receptacles from ages past. The charming tiny size of the boxes and bottles is due to the short shelf-life of makeup in older times. While focused on cosmetics, the museum also displays various other historical beauty-related items, such as hair accessories, mirrors, pieces of jewelry, and more. The museum is a wonderful opportunity to take a peek into the history of beauty.

* Traditional perfume oil (2,000 won) and perfume pouch (4,000 won) making workshops are also available at the Coreana Cosmetics Museum every day from Tuesday to Saturday- no reservation needed for individual visitors, just ask about the workshop at the information desk. If you have a group of 10 or more people, you need to make a reservation in advance.

The information about locations and businesses mentioned in this blog post could be subject to change after the date of publication. Please check the opening times and exact locations before visiting.

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