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The Company
Amarté Cosmetic Co., Ltd. is a leading South
Korea-based skin care and cosmetics company. Typical of the successful Korean company, Amarté has a dignified and customer-focused
corporate culture that is based upon market awareness, creativity, innovation
and meticulous attention to detail. Amarté
produces products of remarkable quality and has very capable research,
development and manufacturing facilities. Amarté has partnered with cosmetic scientists at KAIST University (Korea’s
equivalent of MIT) to ensure that all aspects of product development remain at
the highest levels of innovation, quality and overall competency. Amarté manufactures skin care and hair care
products as well as some color cosmetics. Amarté USA represents Amarté internationally.
International
Expansion
Founded in 1994, Amarté began exporting products,
first to Hong Kong, in 2002. In 2001 the
owner of a prominent Chinese pharmaceutical company wished to establish a
premium skin care brand for the rapidly growing Hong Kong and Mainland China aesthetic
markets. After performing blinded
product efficacy and aesthetic tests on over 40 different skin care lines from
around the world including many from well known high-end manufacturers, Amarté was
selected to formulate produce and package the offering. The brand name ‘Mioggi’ was chosen in honor
of Amarté’s founder ‘Mi Ok’ Oh and launched in 2002. Today Mioggi has over 15 stores including a
six story Mioggi flagship store in Hong Kong’s high-rent Causeway Bay district. One of its hot products, Aqua Veil, is the
top selling high end skin care product in Hong Kong. Amarté USA began its international marketing
and distribution activities outside of Hong Kong and China for Amarté Cosmetics
in 2007.
Nature of
the Products
Amarté products are a fusion of traditional Korean
medicine ingredients and principles with modern day key ingredients and
formulation methods. The products are pure
and have been tested and certified by the Korean FDA – a regulatory body considered
more rigorous than the US FDA. In
addition to utilizing key herbal and other holistic ingredients, Amarté
products incorporate a wide variety of high tech ingredients including, for
example, laboratory-verified 2-nanometer liposome-encapsulated epidermal growth
factor in a gel vehicle and 3.8% retinol in a well tolerated cream formulation. The 3.8% retinol formulation in the above
example compares very favorably with current US market product offerings in
which 1.0% retinol formulations are considered high potency and potentially
irritating.
There are two overall characteristics that make
Amarté brand an exemplary high-end skin care product offering. First, daily use of the products is an exceptionally
pleasant experience that provides healthy, clean and aesthetically improved
skin. Second, the aesthetic improvements
(texture, tone, translucence) occur in the absence of irritation and are
typically socially significant. The
pleasantness of use and aesthetic improvement associated with Amarté products
are the two key essentials that Amarté has mastered. These are the same two essentials that
discriminating customers look to in the long run, regardless of branding,
labeling and packaging (which remain very important in their own right). |
