‘Just Makeup’ tops Coupang Play for 5 weeks — what’s behind its unexpected success?

A TWS member gets makeup done by Son Tail, left, and Paris Golden Hands for the K-pop mission on “Just Makeup.” Courtesy of Coupang Play

Coupang Play’s competition show “Just Makeup,” which pitted 60 makeup artists against one another in an intense tournament, wrapped its season with the final winner announcement — and with an unlikely streak.

The program held the No. 1 spot on the platform for five consecutive weeks, drawing in not only young female viewers but a growing number of male viewers as well.

Producers say the key was simple: focus on the thrill of competition, not product promotion.

“We used makeup as the theme, but we designed the show as a pure survival competition,” producers Park Seong-hwan and Shim Woo-jin said in an interview in Seoul’s Samcheong-dong on Tuesday, joined by the final top three artists: Paris Golden Hands (Kim Min), Oh DolceVita (Oh Hyun-jung) and Son Tail (Son Joo-hee). “There have been countless beauty shows introducing products. We didn’t want to repeat that.”

Paris Golden Hands (Kim Min), the final winner of “Just Makeup,” applies makeup to veteran actress Ban Hyo-jeong during the last round of the competition. Courtesy of Coupang Play

A visual survival show with ‘clear-cut results’

The series debuted at a moment when global interest in K-beauty is high, and expectations rose early because it was the next survival project from Studio Slam, the team behind Netflix’s “Culinary Class Wars.”

Shim said the visual clarity of the craft was key. “Unlike food shows, where taste has to be imagined, makeup is instantly visible,” he said. The show used split screens and clean editing to help viewers unfamiliar with makeup see results “clearly and simply.”

Ensuring fairness — a chronic issue for art-based competitions — was also a major focus. Judges were instructed to prioritize adherence to mission themes over subjective standards of beauty.

For the first round, the team recruited 60 models of similar age and height; the second round used 30 sets of twins to standardize conditions. Final looks were filmed in high resolution with minimal retouching. To avoid skewing results, most product placement proposals were rejected.

Son Tail creates a makeup look inspired by Ko Sang-woo’s “Ka-madhenu” on “Just Makeup.” Courtesy of Coupang Play

Makeup as an art form — and a wide-open creative canvas

One of the show’s biggest achievements, according to contestants, was expanding makeup beyond aesthetics into an artistic medium.

Son Tail’s interpretation of artist Koh Sang-woo’s “Ka-madhenu,” which turned the canvas’s cow motif into a three-dimensional illusion on the model’s face, captured wide attention. Paris Golden Hands recreated the anatomy of a “Red Horse” using red fibers and impasto-like textures, replicating muscles, tendons and veins with painterly detail.

“It wasn’t just about making someone look pretty. We got to conceive entire concepts and express our own ideas — that’s what moved me most," said Paris Golden Hands, the season’s final winner.

Son Tail added that the program “expanded the role of makeup artists and elevated the status of K-beauty,” while Oh Dolce Vita said it finally showed viewers “why makeup artists are truly artists.”

Season 2 already in discussion

With viewership far exceeding expectations, producers and Coupang Play are now in serious talks about moving the show into a seasonal format.

“Next season, we want to keep the artistic challenges but add missions with broader appeal — like natural makeup,” Park said.

Shim added that casting will widen beyond celebrity artists. “We’d like to bring in first-generation masters, freelance artists abroad, longtime neighborhood shop owners, even the kid in high school everyone says is the best at makeup. We want a completely different picture next time.”

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.