Where to find the best viral Korean beauty treatments in Melbourne
Words by Bianca O’Neill
Golki facials, scalp spas and glass skin.
Korean beauty treatments have been steadily taking over my algorithms for about a year now. From deep-cleansing scalp spas to colour theory for your wardrobe and makeup choices, it’s hard to escape the best of these viral South Korean beauty treatments on social media at the moment.
But with flights to Seoul costing four figures, and a booking at some of the most popular clinics rarer than hens teeth at the moment, I started to wonder if I could put together my own Korean beauty itinerary without leaving my home city?
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Turns out, Melbourne has some of TikTok’s most hyped treatments on offer. So, here’s where to go to try out the best Korean beauty trends for yourself. Just don’t be surprised when the experts tell you to stop wearing black…
Glass skin and snail mucin
There’s no doubt that ‘glass skin’ has been one of the most viral beauty search terms in recent years. But what does it actually mean? Emerging from the Korean beauty community online, glass skin has come to describe the kind of skin that is so smooth, dewy and poreless it looks like glass. (I won’t go into the deeper issues behind that beauty standard, but you can read Jessica DeFino’s hot take on it here…).
If you’re looking for a treatment in Melbourne that offers you the chance to try out the trend, Bimini Body Contouring has a popular ‘Korean Facial’ on offer that combines a chemical peel and LED with RF skin tightening and lymphatic massage. For the big finale, you’ll even cop some snail mucin (the secretion that a snail leaves behind) as a final layer.
Book in here.
RF Potenza (micro needling) and HIFU (ultrasound) facials
Many of the best laser, LED and ultrasound facial treatments are so commonplace and affordable in South Korea, but either hard to find or exorbitant here. With the local popularity of injectables and the cost of these machines a huge investment for local salons (which needs to be offset by future bookings), we tend to see older technology in Australia.
Melbourne-based skin clinic NU28 has set out to change that. With a new outpost here in Armadale, this Korean medical aesthetics company has the kind of technology you won’t find anywhere else in Australia, because they are the ones who manufacture it.
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Cutting-edge cult treatments like Rejuran (skin rejuvenation using injectable salmon DNA – we reviewed it here) and a world-first dual-frequency RF Potenza (micro needling) are on offer. NU28 is also the only clinic in Australia that offers HIFU’s Linear Z, a skin-tightening ultrasound treatment likened to a non-surgical facelift.
Book in here.
Korean (and Japanese) scalp therapy
Head spas have been trending all over TikTok and although they’ve most recently been associated with the Korean beauty movement, they’ve also been a Japanese mainstay for many years. There are plenty of versions of this treatment on offer in Melbourne, most of which combine scalp analysis with massage, sometimes a facial, and a deep clean via a semi-circular shower head that blasts your scalp from top to bottom.
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For a Japanese version of the traditional head spa, we recommend The Head Spa by Hikari – an ultra luxurious treatment.
Book in here.
Korean colour analysis
I’ve always been fascinated by the videos of women having their colour analysis done by various Korean companies. Here, they drape you in swatches of fabric, of varying colours and tones, and advise you on the options for clothing, hair colour and makeup, to best suit your natural skin tone. Of course, the recent Korean fad is based off a long-standing idea that all skin tones fall into one of the four seasons; winter, autumn, summer and spring, and that dressing in complementary colours can enhance your natural appearance.
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I recently took the plunge with Sydney-based AEGI.lab, tentatively waiting for my analysis as we swatched through various shades of the rainbow. AEGI move back and forth between Sydney and Melbourne, so keep an eye on their socials for their next Melbourne pop-up. They’ll provide you with a small key ring that allows you to scan your colour palette to your phone, even providing suggested hair colours, makeup palettes and makeup products. Sadly, black isn’t my colour – but as a Melburnian, I probably won’t stop wearing it.
Book in here.
Golki facial
If you’re looking for the Melbourne master of facials, April Brodie has to be it. She’s worked on a veritable laundry list of famous faces (including Megan Markle) between her appointments in London, Sydney and Melbourne – and with a waitlist a mile long, you’ll need to be patient if you’re looking to try her newest Korean-inspired facial, the Golki Fusion facial.
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After travelling to South Korea and training with the best of the best, Brodie has combined her famous buccal facial (which sees her venture inside your mouth for a masseter massage that lifts the facial muscles) with four key elements of Korean beauty treatments: hot and cold contrast, lymphatic drainage, sheet masks applied under LED, and deep facial massage that purports to alter the facial structure. It’s a treatment I’ve tried myself, and the immediate effect afterwards was staggering.
Book in here.
Disclosure: The writer was hosted by April Brodie for a Golki Fusion Facial.
For more on viral Korean beauty treatments, try this.
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