korean beauty awards

HwaHae Beauty Awards

HwaHae is the most popular beauty platform in Korea, boasting over 10 million downloads¹. Every year, HwaHae hosts the highly-anticipated HwaHae Beauty Awards to honour the most popular beauty products of the year. This exciting event takes place twice a year, in the months of June and November, and its winners are determined solely based on the reviews and ratings provided by the platform’s users.

What is HwaHae?

HwaHae is currently the most popular beauty app in Korea, with a record of over 10 million downloads as of 2021¹. The name HwaHae (‘화해’), comes from an abbreviated form of the Korean phrase ‘화장품을 해석하다’ (‘To analyse cosmetics’). HwaHae was created in 2013 by CEO Lee Woong and two friends with one mission: provide users with accurate information on their favourite cosmetics to help them make more informed choices.

The app became an immediate hit and it’s recently been reported that over 80% of Korean women in their 20s and 30s are HwaHae users².

Today users can use the platform to find products that are suitable for their skin type, check their ingredient lists, and read honest and unbiased reviews from other users. HwaHae uses information from the Association of Korean Dermatologists (AKD) to categorise beauty products by ingredients and their suitability for different skin types and displays the hazard level for each ingredient, using the rating system created by the EWG (Environmental Working Group, a US activist group).