I talk about K-beauty quite a bit on this blog, however I’ve only just realized that I wasn’t particularly helpful with telling you where you can get k-beauty in Toronto. In my opinion, it doesn’t seem like we have a lot of brand stores in Toronto (and the surrounding area) but if you include certain chain stores that sell K-beauty (miniso, etc.) it’s a good amount.
1. Pacific Mall
In my opinion, with the exception of going to a K-beauty warehouse sale or event, Pacific Mall is pretty much the hub for K-beauty products. They have some brand stores like; Missha, Aritaum, The Face Shop, It’s Skin, Tony Moly, & one of the bigger brands geared towards people with mature skin, etc. In addition, they also have a handful of beauty stores that carry Korean Beauty products, but do expect the prices to be slightly different.
I got a good majority of my K-beauty products there, and on several occasions I managed to snag some stuff during the store promotions as well as some free samples. P-mall used to have a Holika Holika, but I believe it closed down, however I think there’s also another store at Yonge-Eglinton. If you’re looking for a one-stop shop, try M Brand Shop. They have a good variety of products, and I think they update their social media with what’s new.
2. The Face Shop
I believe TFS is the most common k-beauty brand/store across Toronto/Canada, but don’t quote me on that, please..It was where I started my k-beauty journey and one of the stores with products on the more affordable side of the spectrum. The number of stores they have can be seen with a quick google search, but I feel like certain stores have a better variety of products than others:
- Vaughn Mills
- Yorkdale
- P-Mall
3. VDL Flagship Store
If you’re looking for some of the newer products and don’t mind what brand you’re getting it from, I would suggest checking out the VDL Flagship store. I went to visit it during my March Break with a friend of mine, and it carries mostly makeup there. I remember seeing VDL Korea announcing the arrival of their latest Pantone collab, and then next thing I know, the flagship store announces that it’s in stores.
4. Holika Holika
Even when the Holika Holika store was still at P-mall, the store at Yonge-Eglinton was still larger by comparison and carried more products. I don’t keep up with most of their releases and I don’t visit the store often enough to know how long it would take for them to carry newly released products, but they do seem to have a mall selection of products from other brands.
5. Sukoshi Mart
Sukoshi Mart carries a small selection of K-beauty products, I haven’t been to the STC location yet so I don’t know how it compares. The downtown location usually runs out of said products quickly, because they’re pretty accessible since it’s located at Kensington Market. I think the most common brands/products you can expect to see there are; Etude House, Innisfree & Cosrx.
6. Miniso
Miniso is pretty fast at expanding throughout Toronto, I frequently pass by one of said stores every week when I go to my tutor. The two stores I’ve visited all seem to carry a fairly small collection of k-beauty products alongside Miniso’s own brand of products, I think the Eaton Centre location typically carries more Etude House & Peripera products. The one I occasionally visit has medi heal masks, and that’s literally all I see most of the time lol.
Despite having a good selection of places to get k-beauty products from, you still may have to wait a while to get newer products and they don’t have a wide selection. I find that when I get products to review and etc. I tend to shop online to get the products faster, and because I know that the site I frequent will have certain products in stock.
An option for those looking to stock up is to wait and attend warehouse sales or k-beauty events, I went to Morgan’s (the beauty breakdown on YouTube) event a while back and there were a bunch of brand reps there either showcasing or selling their products. There were also two warehouse sales last year that I went to (Kotra-omni & The Face Shop) to check out products from, but my parents ended up getting a lot of products. I find that these events are great places to hear about new/small brands and to discover non-mainstream products.
Anyways, I apologize for this somewhat long article but I also hope that this will help you locate places to grab k-beauty products. Don’t forget to click “subscribe in a reader” to never miss a blog post!
