On his first-ever trip to South Korea this week, American tourist Jonathan Ko made a beeline for the country's health and beauty retail giant Olive Young's flagship store in Myeongdong, Seoul's trendy shopping street.

There, he swept up 500,000 Korean won (S$463) worth of sunscreen, face masks and creams for personal use and to give away to friends back in the United States.

The 34-year-old, who lives in Los Angeles, California, usually orders Korean skincare products online.

But with "the tariffs driving up prices for everything", Ko thought it was a good time to stock up since he was in Seoul for a one-week holiday, he told The Straits Times outside the Olive Young outlet on April 17.

According to American media, consumers in the US are panic buying K-beauty products before higher prices hit after US President Donald Trump announced on April 2 a tariff blitz on the country's trading partners.

A Washington Post report on April 10 included South Korean-made sunscreen on a list of items that it said American consumers are frantically adding to their online shopping carts, citing data from social media and online message boards.

The Atlantic magazine carried a report on April 5 titled "My Snail Mucin is Caught in a Trade War", in reference to the slime that snails produce, an ingredient popularised by K-beauty products.

Meanwhile, fashion titles Allure and Vogue wrote about "How Much More Expensive Will Beauty Products Get As Tariffs Take Effect?" and "How US Tariffs Would Hit Beauty" respectively.

On social media platform Reddit, South Korean-made sunscreen ranked high among netizens in a thread dedicated to "the beauty products worth buying now", with some saying that they have stocked up on their "beloved" products just in case.

Among K-beauty products sold in the US, sunscreens are reportedly the most popular, prized for their lightweight formulas and efficacy that users believe US-made sunscreens cannot match up to.

The panic buying comes as South Korea was slapped with a 25 per cent reciprocal tariff rate – among the worst-hit of countries with existing free trade agreements with the US.

The US has since paused all reciprocal tariff hikes, except for those on China, for 90 days until July 8.

Seoul is dispatching both its Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-mok and Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun to Washington next week to kick-start tariff talks.

Based on data from South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, K-beauty cosmetics exports reached a record-breaking US$10.2 billion (S$13.4 billion) in 2024, passing the US$10 billion mark for the first time, with a year-on-year export growth of more than 20 per cent since 2020.

The US is the second-largest destination for South Korean beauty products after China.

A report released by Samsung Securities in January projected a 43 per cent growth in e-commerce sales on South Korean-made sunscreen products alone.

Given the strong demand for K-beauty products, South Korea's two major original design manufacturers (ODM), Kolmar Korea and Cosmax, are ramping up production at their US factories by at least two times, reported the Korea Herald on April 17. Products made in the US would not be subject to tariff measures.

Back in Seoul, the two largest domestic cosmetics manufacturers, LG Household and Health Care and Amorepacific, which do not have production plants in the US, have said that they are still monitoring the situation before deciding whether to raise prices for their US-bound products.

An official from LG, which is behind brands such as The Face Shop and The Whoo, said that the tariffs would inevitably have an impact on sales, adding that they will calibrate responses based on tariff negotiation outcomes.

For Amorepacific, which is behind brands like Sulwhasoo, Laneige and Innisfree, the US became its largest overseas market in 2024, surpassing China.

In response to ST's queries, an Amorepacific spokesperson said that the company's strategy will have to "reflect the overall context and variables across the industry".

The cosmetics giant, which has plans to establish production facilities in the US in the next five to 10 years, might expedite them. Chief executive Kim Seung-hwan told Bloomberg TV on April 14 that the plans "might need to be accelerated, considering recent changes and trends".

While bigger players are adopting a wait-and-see approach, smaller players like skincare brand KraveBeauty appear more anxious about the impact.

KraveBeauty's founder Liah Yoo, whose products retail online in the US and are also available in beauty chain Sephora's stores, in a TikTok video uploaded on April 3, warned that the tariffs would cause "a historic shift that will impact nearly every brand exporting from South Korea". She added that K-beauty products will no longer be as affordable as they used to be.

In a second video uploaded on April 11, Yoo said that the high tariffs the US has slapped on China may just "bankrupt some beauty brands", saying that the packaging for her products are sourced from China. She said at the end of the video that "no one knows what will happen yet".

The US and China are locked in an escalating tariff fight, which saw Washington warning on April 16 that tariffs on Chinese products may rise to 245 per cent from the current 145 per cent because of China's retaliatory levy of 125 per cent.

In reference to the issue highlighted by Yoo, University of California San Diego assistant professor of economics Lee Mun-seob told ST that the tariffs on Chinese goods will "create ripple effects across a wide range of industries, regardless of where the final product originates". However, he does not expect it to "disproportionately hurt South Korean producers".

Prof Lee added that he expects the financial burden of tariffs to be distributed among Korean manufacturers, US distributors and the US consumers.

"American consumers will likely end up absorbing much of the cost, given that K-beauty products offer distinctive features that are not easily substituted in the market," he said.

Ko, the American tourist, says that having to deal with higher prices is an inevitable outcome of the tariff wars.

He said: "It is an unfortunate reality that we will have little choice but to pay more for clothes, shoes… everything! Everyone will be suffering."