Dimapur: “Excuse me, you have a nice car, what do you do for a living?” The question is posed to a woman in a stylish blazer and chequered pants holding a Louis Vuitton bag. The setting is visibly staged, copying a popular internet trend. The car is a Porsche convertible with a Korean number plate. In a distinct Naga accent, the woman replies—“Dukaan Malik”, shop owner.
But she isn’t just any next-door entrepreneur. The woman in the Instagram reel is Toinali Chophi who introduced Korean beauty products, or K-beauty, in India long before it became a craze with a cult following from Kerala to Gujarat. She founded Beauty Barn in 2016, one of the first Korean skincare platforms in the country that made COSRX snail mucin, Holika Holika ceramide cream, and Klairs freshly juiced vitamin drop household names.
Chophi has successfully transformed her home-based beauty startup into a thriving business with 30 employees, —and a pan-India dream. From delivering 500 orders in a month, Beauty Barn now handles between 5,000-10,000 orders—with scope for growth. In less than seven years, it has leaped from a brand active on Instagram to a chic website with an app and a sprawling brick-and-mortar store next to MH Hospital in the heart of Dimapur.
Hydrogen collagen masks and micro-needling patches are all the rage now, she says. However, the first-mover advantage that Beauty Barn once enjoyed is waning fast, as everyone from the local salons to big platforms like Nykaa and Amazon are now flogging K-beauty products and offering single-day delivery service. Limese, another K-beauty platform, has opened a swanky store in New Delhi. Korean brand Innisfree, which entered India in 2013, now has over 20 retail shops in the country. And over the past few years, a string of online sites like Skin Bae, Maccaron, SheLC have also flooded the market space, competing to provide a diverse range of Korean skincare products.
Now, Chophi is upping her game. She says she needs to reinvent and re-market Beauty Barn to stay ahead of the beauty curve.
The Instagram reel was her answer—it went viral with nearly 11 million (1.1 crore) views in less than two months since October and is Chophi’s first brush with virality.
Chophi has designed strategies to counter the onslaught of major players. Her focus will be on hosting more events and organising more community-building activities, while exploring new avenues beyond Northeast.
“So far, we have not gone out to connect with customers outside of the Northeast. We plan to have loads of activities around that,” she says.
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A pan-India dream
The entrepreneur is confident about the products she sells. She admires the Korean skincare industry and its reliance on advanced technology, which she claims is “hard for other countries to keep up with”.
“No matter how much you advertise, if the product is not good, it’s not going to sell. The results speak for themselves, so people keep coming back again and again,” Chophi says.
Her personal journey with K-beauty, the cutting-edge innovation incorporated in Korean skincare, and the socio-cultural fabric of Nagaland collectively led to the birth of Beauty Barn. The brand’s story is a crossover between Chophi’s personal skincare journey and the influence of K-beauty.
“From the start, my focus was never [limited to] the Northeast. It has always been pan-India,” says Chophi. Sitting in her wood-panelled office on the first floor of the Beauty Barn store, she monitors online sales in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
The company’s successful operation from one of the easternmost states of the country is not a historical glitch. Nagaland’s brush with the Korean wave took shape more than two decades ago, even before the advent of social media and streaming platforms. Such was the intensity of the cultural phenomenon that the state had even organised an India-Korea Music Festival in 2008.
The K-beauty explosion was bubbling for some time, waiting for the right moment to take off. And Chophi timed it right.
“People keep coming back again and again,” says Chophi
K-beauty trailblazer
Aficionados of Korean skincare hail Beauty Barn as the portal that led them to the realm of K-beauty.
“It was around late 2018 and early 2019 when I got into K-pop and was exploring more of K-culture. Then I discovered the seven-step Korean skincare regime,” says Farozan Akhtar, a New Delhi-based media professional in her 30s.
She came across only two Instagram accounts in India that had curated K-skincare brands—Aizawl-based Daisy Skin Fix and Chophi’s Beauty Barn.
“I bought it from Beauty Barn even though their website was very basic at the time. But they had good discounts,” Akhtar says. It cost her a few hundred rupees and the company didn’t ask for extra payment for customs duty.
“When Korean skincare products were unavailable, especially to middle-class folks who didn’t have the luxury of buying it on their travels abroad, Beauty Barn was a godsend!” she says.
The brand’s Instagram page was also helpful, Akhtar recounts. “They asked me my skin type, concerns with it, and if I was following a particular skincare routine.”
Today, platforms commonly offer consultancy services, but Akhtar says it was a novel concept back then.
Beauty Barn was also prompt with its customer service on Instagram. It was the USP that drew Sadhana Gurung, 24, to the site in 2019. She was looking for a particular Korean AHA/BHA serum, which only Beauty Barn had at the time.
“I think they were one of the firsts to make K-beauty accessible to people in India,” says Gurung, who had been using K-skincare since her college days in New Delhi.
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Mom to make-up queen
Chophi’s battle with skin problems led her on the entrepreneurial path. She had tried everything—from visiting dermatologists to adopting skin care remedies at home.
“I was really struggling with my skin and looked so much older. I was really worried. One of my friends introduced me to Korean skincare products and that really transformed my life,” says the mother of three children. As her skin improved, Chophi found herself evangelising to family and friends, recommending products and routines.
Then her entrepreneurial instincts kicked in. She started her Instagram store, ordering small shipments between 2016-2017.
“I found that there was huge potential in the market. That’s when we launched our website in 2017,” she says.
Until then, she lived a “regular” life away from the spotlight. After finishing schooling in Nagaland, she moved to Bengaluru for college and later Mumbai to pursue a master’s degree in biology. She returned home, got married, and by the time she was in her mid-20s, she was a mother of two kids, struggling with skin woes.
That is when K-skincare propelled Chophi’s life toward a new direction. She began her venture from the confines of her home, hoping that the liquids, serums and products, which acted as elixir for her skin, would also help her “find a purpose in life and be financially independent”.
YouTube was her classroom. “I got to know more about K-beauty through YouTubers, especially Korean-American YouTubers. The Hallyu wave was already popular in the US,” she says.
Chophi’s academic background in science was no help in the beauty industry. She did not come from a business family, her father was a government official. But her husband and five siblings were pursuing businesses of their own. Chophi was fortunate to have a ready-made support system required to transform into a businesswoman without any job experience.
Today, her husband, Inoto Kinimi, helps run Beauty Barn in the capacity of managing director and oversees all backend operations.
“I started with very small shipments. After I understood the whole process. I registered and got a licence. Importing [from South Korea] was not a problem after that,” she says.
The Beauty Barn founder and CEO, who is an avid social media user herself, not only deepened her knowledge about the products via online platforms, she harnessed them to catapult her business.
To date, Chophi makes sure she and her K-skincare delivery platform stay on top of all social media trends—whether it’s ‘What’s in my bag’, plank challenge or the ‘What do you do for a living’ trend.
Her Instagram is a perfect blend of personal and professional—family, fashion, and K-skincare. Photos of her day out with her kids and reels of her sister’s wedding are interspersed with events she’s attending and information on K-beauty trends.
“Most of our clients use very expensive products but if you ask what cleanser you use, they will say, just soap,” says Chophi
It’s an honest reflection of her real life. She sports a smile that exudes warmth. If her stylish demeanour makes her seem a little intimidating initially, her jolly personality and infectious laughter erase all the misgivings.
But behind the extroverted carefree mask is an astute businesswoman who knows exactly how to get new customers. And it isn’t just through skincare products. Content creation and customer service propel Beauty Barn forward.
Chophi recounts instances of clients being ignorant about the fundamentals of skincare. “Most of our clients use very expensive products but if you ask what cleanser you use, they will say, just soap,” she says. Her utilitarian goal is to ensure the best skin care for her clients.
“If you want the most effective (skincare) result, first make your skin balanced and happy,” she says, explaining different parts of the famed 10-step Korean skincare.
Secret behind the allure
The trajectory of K-skincare rage in India is a story that Chophi reads in two parts. She was one of the few who saw the market form, develop, and expand from the beginning.
“I always take Covid as a landmark because during that time, there was a phase when everyone was online and that’s when so many people from the mainland got to know about K-beauty,” she says, noting “a boom of K-beauty websites” once the markets opened up. Today, even Nykaa and Amazon sell K-skincare products.
But the K-beauty explosion was waiting to happen.
Jacinta Lalawmpuii from Aizawl, who started her own shop ‘Skin911’ in May 2019, used to order Korean skincare for “very high rates” from Melbourne during her high school days. Once she struck a deal with a Korean broker company, Limese, she was able to fulfill her target of three months within a month, underlining the intense demand that was already brewing for Korean skincare in India.
“Local people prefer buying from local stores,” says Lalawmpuii
She has observed Beauty Barn’s growth since the time they were making their presence felt in the region. “The company has definitely made a mark in the rest of India. Since they had the contacts and funds, they made it accessible for people after getting famous in the Northeast,” she says.
Lalawmpuii acknowledges that the entry of competitors like Nykaa is a “game changer” for K-skincare, even though they entered the market later than Northeastern sellers. She’s confident that staying relevant is not a problem for her despite the presence of big players.
“There is a huge score of offline sellers because the mainstream brands don’t have many products on their apps. Also, local people prefer buying from local stores,” she said.
Back in the Beauty Barn’s store in Dimapur, which opened in 2018, staff members are busy stacking up the shelves with fresh stock. Row upon row of flashing brands such as I’m from, Beauty of Joseon and Soon Jung fill the cabinets.
Amazon, Nykaa, and others are promoting festive season sales, and it’s a busy time for the small team of employees. A mother and her daughter walk into the store. Chophi sprints out of her office in her heels, greets them with her warm smile, and asks them a simple question on which rests her beauty empire.
“What’s your skin type?”
(Edited by Ratan Priya)