The first question we ran into while getting Konecta ready was simple: what even is the South American market? Just searching online turns up a flood of numbers — rankings, market shares, you name it — but when you actually try to trace where those numbers came from, the source is often shaky at best. So we decided we wouldn't use any figure we couldn't verify, and instead wanted to lay out today what we actually learned firsthand while researching.
Understanding regional skin types first, and curating products to match, is the order that makes sense — researching this only made that clearer to us.
The first assumption that fell apart was the idea that "South America is one market." Just looking at Peru, the capital Lima has a dry, desert-like coastal climate, but head a bit inland and you run into the intense UV of the Andean highlands. Chile spans everything from the northern desert to the cold climate of Patagonia in the south, all within one country. When the climate varies this much, skin concerns naturally vary too.
That made us realize it would be risky to bring a product over as-is just because "it sells well in Korea." In a dry coastal area, moisture and sun care should come first; in a high-altitude area, protecting the skin barrier should come first. Understanding regional skin types first, and curating products to match, is the order that makes sense — researching this only made that clearer to us.
As for numbers like market size or K-beauty's market share, we honestly haven't yet found a source we'd trust for this research, so we deliberately left them out of this post. What we could confirm, looking at social media and local communities, was more of a general sense: mentions of Korean skincare routines and ingredients come up consistently. Getting a feel for that kind of atmosphere first, rather than chasing exact figures, feels like the step we actually need right now.
We'll keep researching the market going forward, but we don't want to force in anything we haven't confirmed. Instead, we'll keep building up information with clear sources, one piece at a time, and only publish on this blog what we've verified ourselves. We'll share the next update soon.