Last April, beauty mogul Kylie Jenner posted a TikTok highlighting her favorite products from K-beauty label Medicube, after stopping by the brand’s LA Glowland pop-up. “I’m now obsessed with the Booster Pro,” she told her 59.7 million followers, in a video that has since racked up more than 1.6 million likes. After her visit, the pop-up had 5,000 visitors over a week.
Jenner’s is just one of the 670,000 posts under the #Medicube hashtag on TikTok, where creators and other high-profile fans — Hailey Bieber, Alix Earle, Molly-Mae Hague — showcase before and after results using the brand’s viral products, such as the Zero Pore Pads and Age-R devices, which have helped to position Medicube at the forefront of K-beauty’s latest resurgence.
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During last year’s Amazon Prime Day alone, Medicube drove $22 million in sales; on Black Friday, it generated over $9 million across Amazon, TikTok Shop, and its own site. In October, it ranked number one in Ulta Beauty’s online skincare category and number three overall across online and in-store sales, capping off its expansion into more than 1,400 Ultra Beauty stores across the US.
“A lot of products that already exist in the UK and the US markets tend to focus on more generic skin concerns, like moisturizing or anti-aging. However, a lot of our products focus on very specific skincare needs and cater to specific ingredients,” says founder and CEO of Medicube’s parent company APR Kim Byung-hoon, speaking to Vogue Business on Zoom from Seoul. “Because of this very targeted ingredient pairing, we felt that the products really resonated with the consumers.”
Medicube was founded in Seoul in 2017 under APR Corp — a beauty-tech group established in 2014, which houses brands including AprilSkin, Forment, and Glam.D — Medicube started out as a dermatology-led skincare label before evolving into a device-and-skincare hybrid brand. It began to hit international virality around 2022, as TikTok’s appetite for at-home beauty tech accelerated and creators began documenting visible, real-time results from its cult products.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, APR reported consolidated revenues of approximately $440 million, up 124% year-on-year. Overseas revenue rose 203% to roughly $362 million, increasing its share of total sales from 58% to 87%. For the full year, APR reported total revenues of approximately $1.2 billion, of which Medicube accounted for roughly $1.1 billion, meaning the brand constitutes the vast majority of the group’s overall business and serves as its primary growth engine.
K-beauty — which first surged a decade ago, before reaching market saturation — has enjoyed a second coming over the last two years, as new players like Medicube enter the fray. Suddenly, K-beauty labels are flooding feeds and retail shelves, with Western legacy conglomerates and indie upstarts racing to compete. Using similar active ingredients, Medicube has managed to cut through the noise by anchoring itself in problem-solution alignment — first with its Red line targeting acne-prone skin, and later with its tech-driven Age-R devices, which moved the needle from topical treatments to beauty hardware. Rather than merely riding waves of virality, the brand has focused on engineering them, pairing clinical positioning with high-ticket beauty tech and an aggressive digital distribution strategy designed to convert attention into sustained scale.
But as K-beauty’s resurgence intensifies, and competitors increasingly move into devices and clinical claims, the brand will need to grapple with its sustaining innovation and premium positioning in a market where trends — and loyalties — move at algorithmic speed.
Dermatology first, trend second
While much of K-beauty’s second wave in the West has been propelled by dewy “glass skin” aesthetics and slugging, Medicube has carved out a path of its own. Instead of jumping on each viral trend and marketing message, the brand has built momentum around highly specific, problem-solution products, most notably its Zero Pore Pads, a textured, dual-sided exfoliating pad pre-soaked in pore-refining actives, as well as its Collagen Night Wrapping Mask, designed to seal ingredients overnight for a visible firmness boost. The through line is not trend participation, but targeted outcomes: clear concerns, measurable results, and repeatable routines that are easily shareable online.
“Medicube differentiates itself within the K-beauty category through its dermatology-led and clinical development model,” says Billie Faricy-Hyett, chief buying officer of beauty e-tailer Lookfantastic, which has stocked the brand since July 2025. “Unlike many brands that prioritize trend-driven innovation, Medicube formulates products around well-researched, clinically proven active ingredients and technologies with a clear evidence base in cosmetic dermatology.”
That positioning has quickly translated into performance. Medicube entered the retailer’s top 30 skincare brands list in just months after launch. And by early 2026, it had climbed into the top 10 by revenue, an “unprecedented achievement given the limited number of products they offer and the fierce competition in the skincare space”, Faricy-Hyett notes. “The Zero Pore Pads 2.0 have emerged as the bestselling product, with over 300 units sold in the past two days alone, reflecting both strong initial adoption and rapid replenishment,” she adds.
Growth has been driven by a focused core product range — Zero Pore Pads 2.0, Collagen Night Wrapping Mask, Zero Pore Pads Mild — underscoring a strategy built on hero products rather than constant churn.
“We pair those products with the Booster Pro, our facial device, because while we were already confident in the efficacy of the skincare, the device amplifies those results,” says Byung-hoon. “When consumers use them together, the difference is tangible — they can see and feel the enhanced effects. That combination creates a powerful synergy between hardware and formulation, often turning first-time users into long-term advocates.”
The power of devices
Today, it is almost impossible to scroll TikTok without encountering a red light mask or a vibration plate. But when Medicube began investing in at-home devices in 2021 with its Age-R line, the category was largely unproven. The Age-R device harnesses a combination of microcurrent, electroporation and LED technology, which Medicube claims will help firm, lift and enhance product absorption, delivering visibly tighter, smoother-looking skin over time.
“In Korea, access to skincare clinics is incredibly broad. Because there’s so much competition, treatments are relatively affordable,” says Byung-hoon. That environment shaped Medicube’s thinking from the start. If clinic-level treatments were accessible in Korea, why couldn’t similar results be delivered at home? “There’s only so much creams and serums can do,” Byung-hoon continues. “We believe devices can bridge that gap.” As the brand expanded across Asia and into the Americas, the opportunity became even clearer. “In many overseas markets, access to clinics isn’t as widespread or affordable as it is in Korea. So our goal was simple: bring advanced technology into the home and make it accessible globally.”
That early bet paid off. Global sales in Medicube’s Age-R category, led by the Booster Pro and complemented by Mini and Ultra-Tune models, have exceeded six million units, proving that TikTok-native consumers will invest in pricier at-home beauty tech when results are credible and clearly articulated.
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“We work closely with doctors and clinical advisors,” Byung-hoon says. “And we own our factories. We don’t outsource production, which allows us to control quality at every step. Safety and results. You can’t compromise on either.” Driving visible results often means increasing power output — particularly in heat or energy-based devices. But that introduces risk, which is where engineering becomes critical. “With our Ultra-Tune device, which uses heat technology, we added multiple sensors,” he explains. “They prevent overheating or underheating, which allows us to push performance while maintaining safety.”
The next frontier is clinical, creating devices for salon use. “We’re also expanding into medical-grade devices that are meant for clinical use rather than at-home use. Those will be launching toward the end of the year, starting in the Korean market,” he says. “From there, we believe it’s only a matter of time before we introduce those medical-grade clinical devices overseas.”
From TikTok to 1,400 stores
Much of K-beauty’s second wave has been fueled not by department store counters, but by TikTok feeds. Medicube recognized this early. Rather than treating TikTok as a top-of-funnel awareness channel, the company saw it as infrastructure — a place where community validation, affiliate commerce, and real-time product testing could operate simultaneously.
“Once we spent time on the platform, we realized there was deep peer-to-peer reviewing happening,” says Byung-hoon. “It wasn’t just influencers. Regular consumers were analyzing features, comparing devices, and explaining results.”
That behavior aligned naturally with the brand’s device strategy, with hardware requiring demonstration and trust. TikTok’s culture of live testing and comment-section interrogation offered both. Just as significantly, it offered immediacy. “We were able to see feedback in real time,” Byung-hoon says. “People told us what they loved, and what they wanted to improve. That direct loop made us invest more heavily.”
Medicube was also early to TikTok Shop, moving decisively into live commerce and affiliate-driven distribution while many beauty brands remained cautious. In March 2025, it became the first K-beauty brand to host a TikTok Shop Super Brand Day in the US, featuring creator Michelle Phan and celebrity makeup artist Sir John, the latter of whom was simultaneously announced as creative director of the brand. The decision proved commercially material. According to Charm.io, Medicube recorded a 1,143% increase in TikTok Shop revenue from 2024 to 2025. To date, the brand has surpassed $102.9 million in TikTok Shop revenue, selling one million units across 101 SKUs.
Crucially, much of that growth has been driven by affiliate infrastructure rather than singular tentpole moments, with nearly 34,000 creators signed up as affiliate partners. TikTok’s commission-based creator economy allowed mid-tier and micro-creators to participate in device education at scale, creating a distributed salesforce of explainers rather than a small roster of brand ambassadors. Paid partnerships accelerated the flywheel, spanning everyone from Jenner and Jeffree Star to Earle and Tati Westbrook, whose “Better Than Botox” YouTube video showcasing the company’s devices reportedly generated a more than ten-fold return on ad spend, alongside collaborations with creators such as Mikayla Nogueira and Phan.
Leadership visibility further reinforced that positioning. Byung-hoon appears regularly on TikTok under the nickname “CEOppa” — a portmanteau of CEO and oppa, the Korean term used by younger women to refer to an elder brother or a familiar older male — answering questions and explaining device technology directly to consumers. In an era when employee-generated content is becoming an increasingly powerful trust driver, this kind of hands-on, founder-facing communication carries weight — particularly given how rare it is for billionaire executives of K-beauty brands to position themselves so accessibly and publicly on platforms like TikTok.
Digital momentum has since translated into physical scale. After building demand through TikTok Shop and affiliate commerce, Medicube inked a nationwide retail partnership with Ulta Beauty in 2024, marking a decisive shift from platform-native disruptor to mainstream US retail player. The rollout has accelerated steadily: from August 2025, the brand is stocked in 1,400 Ulta Beauty stores across America.
The expansion underscores a broader strategic arc. TikTok generated velocity and proof of concept; affiliate infrastructure drove conversion at scale; and retail distribution cemented permanence. What Medicube has built is not simply a viral moment, but a vertically integrated growth engine — one that moves seamlessly from content to cart to counter.
