Etude Brand Guidelines: The Pink Korean Makeup Brand Once Called Etude House

A name taken from Chopin.

Etude is a South Korean makeup brand owned by Amorepacific. Its name comes from music: the brand’s international website says it was inspired by Chopin’s Études, and the Japanese fashion site Fashion Press explains the name the same way, as the French word for a study, or practice piece. For most of its life the brand traded as Etude House; Fashion Press dates the change to the shorter name, written ETUDE, to March 2020.

Sources give two dates for the start. Fashion Press says the brand began in Korea in 1985 as Etude House and joined the Amorepacific group in 1990. Amorepacific’s own corporate history lists 1995 as the year it “launches Etude House,” placing it in the same run of new labels as Mamonde in 1991, Laneige in 1994 and Sulwhasoo in 1997. The group itself traces its corporate history to Pacific Chemical, established in 1945, according to the same pages.

The brand grew through its own shops. Fashion Press says Etude House opened its first store in Korea in August 2005, had 100 stores in Korea by April 2007 and 200 by April 2009. Fashion Press names pink as the brand colour and describes a range of trend-led makeup, naming Curl Fix Mascara and Play Color Eyes eyeshadow palettes; it adds a further street-front store in Harajuku in December 2016.

From princess fantasy to a sweet dream.

For years Etude House was known for a fairy-tale look. Inside Retail Asia reported in September 2016 that the brand had been tagged “Princess Fantasy” and had moved to a new positioning, “Sweet Dream,” with more sophisticated visuals in its advertising and its packaging designs and a new slogan built around the word “sweet,” meant, the publication said, to reflect the outlook of people in their twenties. Global Cosmetics News reported the same change in October 2016, citing Korea JoongAng Daily, and described the new visuals as fresher and more modern. The Korea Times said in September 2016 that the brand had introduced a new set of product designs at the same time.

The same reports show how the brand reached its audience. Inside Retail Asia said Etude House had started a multi-channel network in June 2016, the Beautizens Club, choosing 25 content creators from Asia to receive makeup tutorials, and had launched a mobile app that suggested colours from purchasing patterns. With the Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation, it also let customers collect online orders from lockers inside subway stations. Global Cosmetics News added that the app let shoppers order products for collection in a store or at their nearest subway station.

For 2016, The Korea Times listed the Play 101 Stick, a colour stick for eyes, cheeks and lips introduced the previous December; Tint My Brows Gel; Dear My Blooming Lips-Talk, a lipstick; and the Real Powder Cushion. Two months later the same paper reported that Etude House had developed cushion compacts for customers in China, using the format Amorepacific had introduced with IOPE in 2008.

After the change of name, the brand’s international website talks of “Beauty Play Culture” and of making a personal “playlist” of makeup, and lists ranges including Fixing Tint, Dear Darling Water Gel Tint, SoonJung and a Ginger Sugar lip mask. Amorepacific’s corporate page for the brand now uses ETUDE throughout and describes it as a makeup brand for young women, built around colour and play.

Packaging, stores and group ownership.

Korean beauty brands tend to present themselves through the groups that own them as much as through their own names. Two companies own many of the labels in this guide. Amorepacific, whose history page dates its founding company, Pacific Chemical, to 1945, lists brands including Sulwhasoo, Laneige and Innisfree on its corporate website. LG H&H owns lines such as The History of Whoo, Sum 37 and O HUI, according to the Korea Times in 2023. Other names covered here are run by separate companies, and each guide states its owner as dated sources give it.

The companies publish a good deal about themselves. Corporate history pages give launch years, founders and owners, and brand pages set out philosophies in the companies’ own words; those claims are attributed in each guide rather than repeated as fact. Where a launch date differs between a company and the press, both versions are given.

Much of the visual identity is set out in shops. Korean trade and daily press have reported flagship stores in detail: a lantern-themed building in Gangnam, a hanok store in Bukchon, a glass-walled visitor house among Jeju’s tea fields. Logo changes are reported as news too, with new wordmarks, colours and packaging announced to the press and rolled out across products, advertising and store interiors.

Export markets shape the story. Brands covered here have opened stores in China, Hong Kong, Australia and North America, and some later closed them; the Korea Herald, Korea Times and Korea JoongAng Daily have covered each move. Campaigns often pair a named range with a celebrity ambassador or a cultural partner, and each guide names those only as dated reports do.

Shops across Asia, then online.

Etude House took its shops abroad within a few years of opening them at home, though sources differ on where it began. The Korea Times reported in 2016 that the brand opened its first overseas shop in Thailand in 2007; Fashion Press dates its first move abroad to Taiwan in 2009, followed that year by Singapore and the Philippines and by Myanmar and Brunei in 2010. Both agree on Japan in 2011, with a first shop in Shinjuku, Tokyo; Fashion Press adds a first Japanese street-front store in Harajuku in August 2015.

By September 2016, The Korea Times and Inside Retail Asia reported, Etude House had about 230 stores in 12 countries in Asia. The company’s first directly managed overseas store, on Siam Square in Bangkok, had opened in May that year, The Korea Times said. Fashion Press also records a Hong Kong entry in November 2013 and a global flagship in Shanghai in 2014, while The Korea Times gives 2012 for Hong Kong.

In 2019 the brand reached India online. Inside Retail Asia reported in May 2019 that Amorepacific had launched Etude House in India on 30 April that year, exclusively through the beauty retailer Nykaa, making it the third Amorepacific brand in India after Innisfree and Laneige. In Japan, Fashion Press says, the brand is sold by Amorepacific Japan.

Through all of this the owner has stayed the same. Etude is presented on Amorepacific’s corporate site as one of the group’s brands, beside IOPE, Laneige and Innisfree, and the 2020 change of name left the company behind it unchanged.

For a design guide, Etude shows how a single colour and a playful voice can carry a brand through a change of name and of positioning. Compare Amorepacific, the group behind it, and Innisfree, a sister brand that also grew through its own shops. For this guide we use a raspberry pink, a blush and a plum ink with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Etude’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.