September 17, 2018

Memebox Headed to Sephora with New Brand Kaja Beauty

Memebox is launching a new brand, Kaja Beauty, at Sephora.com later this month. You may still be suffering from the demise of Memebox as you knew it but the brand has been busy repositioning itself across a variety of different outlets including Ulta and Sephora (and I suspect at some point Target).

Kaja Beauty was created exclusively for Sephora and will include a total of 47 items and will be available as of September 28th in select stores and this Tuesday online. Memebox has already raised 160 million dollars in funding after shutting down in 2017 while rearranging it’s business model to take on new ventures such as this one.

In some ways, Kaja Beauty will play an important role in the K-Beauty world since it brings color cosmetics to the Korean beauty world here in the US and at Sephora that was lacking. You might notice that many K-brands featured at Sephora don’t include color cosmetics but rely heavily on Korean skincare. That’s about to change with Kaja Beauty.

Quite a few of the items are look interesting and may be something worth purchasing but I have to admit that Ulta’s exclusive Memebox brands such as I Dew Care and Nooni Skincare has a leg up on Kaja Beauty’s more “cuter” look and feel. But again, neither of those options have color cosmetics.

Here’s some items that caught my eye!

Kaja Beauty Bento Bouncy Shimmer Eyeshadow Trio ($21)

Kaja Beauty Cheeky Stamp Blendable Blush ($24)

Kaja Beauty Mochi Pop Bouncy Blush ($19)

Kaja Beauty Cat Nap Under Eye Brightener ($19)

Kaja Beauty Don’t Settle Concealer ($19)

I’m quite excited to check Kaja out when it launches tomorrow. I can see myself definitely indulging in the concealer and under eye brightener! The concealer comes in a surprisingly large number of shades which is unheard of for a K-Beauty brand!

What do you think of the new Memebox Kaja Beauty Collection?

Where to buy

Sephora

About the Muse

Isabella MuseIsabella is just an average everyday geeky girl who doesn’t blend her eyeshadow correctly, wears too much blush, and hopes she never finds her holy grail products because she likes the thrill of the chase so much. Her mission is to bring you super honest reviews on makeup, skincare, fragrance and all things beauty. She’s in no way an expert on the topic and she sure as hell isn’t a super model. But she’s passionate about makeup and is seeking like-minded individuals that like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and ones that enjoy spending hundreds of dollars at Sephora without feeling buyer’s remorse. If you’re that person feel free to reach out and leave a comment or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Bloglovin‘.

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Comments

  • kjh

    Welcome back. Hope you had fun. Too excited. Now Ulta will up the K color, too, though they kind of look like Nordie’s already, anyway. K-cealer? Big time. If the ingredients are right, totally there. Hope some comes instore.

    • Isabella Muse

      thanks! I did! 🙂 You mean Sephora, this isn’t launching at Ulta sadly 🙁

      • kjh

        what I meant is that S has slacked off on K, and U has increased. Now that S is at least trying some color, U will further up their game. It’s the competition. S d/c’d touch in sol stretchex mascara, which is a very pliable tubing one. Would probably have rebought, but for the metric ton of minis we get. S got rid of the TIS eyeliners: bought 3 and they were like torture…S would not publish the review. I suspect if you bought them in K, they would be fine. I think S probably cannot get one of the biggies, like Etude House. EH has such a broad network of distribution in Asia, that they do not need the production pressure of adding S to their retail outlets. EH would probably have to build more factories, or outsource their production, like I think the XMAS US stuff often is. Think we will see K/A color brands that are on the rise and need to expand their customer base.

        • Agona

          Yeah, Etude House doesn’t need them for distribution; I order direct from their website, free and fast shipping and never had any issues!! Their CS responds to my emails very quickly too.

  • Kyuu

    I had been wondering what happened to memebox because they were absolutely everywhere then suddenly sites like sokoglam took over and no one spoke a word about memebox.

    I feel like $160m is a lot to go into a beauty startup that already failed at its first business model. That’s on the scale of a very profitable tech start up already with its own user base. (Comparatively, Calm app did its seed funding earlier this year and received only $27m in series a funding, and it’s been operational and with a user base for at least 5 years.) either the memebox owners have something brilliant up their sleeve or they’re very convincing.

    On that note, what makes something k-beauty these days? My impression was that it was Korean brands primarily based in Korea and exported worldwide but it seems like memebox is mostly US based? I wouldn’t consider julep a k beauty brand though its owner is Korean. It seems disingenuous to call it k beauty if it’s made in the US for western audiences just because the founders are Korean.

    • Isabella Muse

      Don’t quote me but I don’t think memebox technically failed I think they wanted to venture out of importing brands and go with creating their own brand. I Dew Care, nooni, etc are branches of those new brands they created. I guess they expect to see more of a turn around from operations like that. And yes, this is a good question! Because I’m seeing a lot of the same regarding Korean beauty. Most brands seem to originate out of California!

      • kjh

        I don’t think the Memebox products…Nooni, etc are doing as well as they could be at U. That jelly oil first cleanse is super. Thanks for the review/rec.

    • kjh

      Yes, to be correct. I guess to be literal, there should be a K-Am category for products that come out of the heritage and ‘traditional’ ingredients, but are formulated stateside. But, it’s a very globally interwoven marketplace at present. I think Kose owns Tarte, but I see little Japanese influence. Cosmetic chemists and line heads…like Weil, are mining the treasury that are traditionally Asian ingredients. He uses ginseng an mushrooms extensively. The US owes Asia big time. Even the DS level and the minors are doing it. Read any product’s ingredients list these days, and they have borrowed extensively from what were only Asian ingredients, when Isabella first started getting into the AB/KB world, BITD. I see it as a win-win.

      • Agona

        In that respect, I can totally dig that but for example, the reason I am drawn to K Beauty is I’ve realized that the undertones work much better with my Asian skintone than Western brands in some respects. I can pull of pinks and oranges in Asian beauty cosmetics that absolutely look garish or clash on me from Western brands. Additionally, foundation is a much better match for my skin tone, which makes sense because I’m ethnically aligned with their market niche but if they’re trying to expand into Western markets, then it doesn’t make sense to only market towards just that niche. That being said, you have no idea how excited I was to find undertones foundation that finally matched me perfectly!!

  • Lisette

    I’m looking forward to this launch. But I sure do miss the old Memebox, I loved those boxes!

  • Agona

    I saw this and I’m into K-beauty but this seems catered specifically to a US market…which makes me feel like defeats the whole purpose!

  • Hyungseok Dino Ha

    Hi Isabella, this is Dino from Memebox. I am the founder and CEO of the company. Thank you for sharing the news and reviewing our new line: Kaja. Hope you like it.

    It’s helpful to see the above comments about our company and brands. I will take the comments into a consideration and continue to build that the beauty community wants.

    Thank you again!

    • Isabella Muse

      Hi Dino! Thanks for taking time out to comment today! I can’t wait to try Kaja! Haven’t yet but looking forward to trying it soon! Thank you! I sure appreciate that and many of my readers do as well 🙂

      • Agona

        …! The fact that a company cares this much about feedback totally just made me want to buy their products. I’m adding some stuff to my Sephora wish list as we speak!