On May 30, Yepoda opened The Yepoda Haus Seoul, a store designed as an immersive journey through the skincare routine. The two-story space combines educational displays with product testing areas, with the ground floor focusing on showcasing ingredients and formulations and the second floor offering product testing and purchasing.

Sensory and Educational Trail

The ground floor is designed like an exhibition, focusing on signature ingredients, formulation secrets, and visible results. An educational section complements this layout, transforming the discovery into a sensory and educational experience. The second floor allows visitors to test the entire product line and purchase the products they’ve tried.

Product positioning and certifications

Yepoda markets its product line as made in Korea and formulated without silicones, parabens, or microplastics. The brand displays its certifications—B Corp and vegan (as recognized by PETA)—and states that all formulas are dermatologically tested and backed by clinical results.

The store is opening in Seongsu, a vibrant and creative neighborhood in Seoul, and is part of an experiential retail concept focused on product transparency and community engagement.

The brand was founded in 2020 by Sander Joonyoung van Bladel and Veronika Strotmann and reports having more than 100 employees.

The new center brings together biotechnological capabilities, formulation and clinical testing for the Asian cosmetics market. It aims to support collaborative product development for China and Asia.

Evonik's new Asia Beauty Science & Innovation Center has opened its doors in the Evonik Shanghai Innovation Park. The site integrates research, development and innovation (RD&I) capabilities focused on biotechnological ingredient engineering and formulation expertise, as well as consumer-oriented testing and validation facilities.

RD&I platform and targeted processes

The Asia RD&I platform covers cross-functional activities from molecular design to industrialization. These include enzymatic esterification and the development of polyglycerol esters, as well as end-to-end functional ingredient innovation, backed up by external partnerships to accelerate biotechnological progress.

Applied laboratories and skin institute

The Asia Personal Care Applied Innovation Lab supports the complete development chain for skincare, cleansing, hair, suncare and make-up, from trend analysis to formulation, prototyping, stability assessment, sensory testing and efficacy trials. The Evonik Skin Institute's Chinese laboratory mobilizes high-throughput screening, 3D skin models, clinical study design, skin imaging and biomarker analysis to support efficacy and product claims.

The center's layout also includes a Customer Experience Center, a multifunctional space for demonstrations, co-construction of scientific communications and exploration of more flexible partnership models.

Ute Schick, head of the Care Solutions business line at Evonik, emphasizes that «beauty innovation today is increasingly global and interconnected».» and links the opening to the deepening of Evonik's presence in a market that influences many global trends.

Fuliang Xia, President of Evonik Greater China, explains: «This center brings together several innovation capabilities in a single location. In a fast-moving and highly competitive market like China, this integrated approach enables us to translate scientific insights into market-ready solutions with greater speed and precision.»

The latest operational milestone announced is the operation of the center within the Shanghai Innovation Park, whose commissioning positions Shanghai as an innovation hub integrated into Evonik's global R&D network.

The program doubles its capacity to reach 5,000 vulnerable women, and is supported by an Ipsos bva survey measuring the social impact of socio-aesthetic treatments.

The L'Oréal Foundation is launching a second Salon de Soins Itinérant to extend free access to socio-aesthetics: two salons will cover the country for five months, making almost 140 stops to reach 5,000 women referred by partner associations.

Public perception measured by Ipsos BVA

The Ipsos BVA survey of 2,000 French people carried out from April 30 to May 4, 2026 shows that 95 % consider it legitimate to be able to take care of themselves, and that more than 9 out of 10 French people find it difficult for women in precarious situations, who are ill or victims of violence, to take care of themselves. The measurement, carried out online (Cawi) with a maximum margin of error of ±/-2.2 points, also reveals that 91 % believe that support from a socio-aesthetician can help regain confidence and reintegrate socially.

Observed effects and operational deployment

The Foundation points out that 71 % of French people say they have personally observed positive effects of the treatment on morale, confidence or the return to work, and that 81 % believe that socio-aesthetics can encourage a return to employment and the freeing of speech. Since 2007, almost 200,000 women have already benefited from the socio-aesthetic treatments offered by the program. Beauty For A Better Life.

Hayatte Maazouza, Program Director Beauty For A Better Life, The L'Oréal Foundation reports that «The deployment of a second Salon de Soins Itinérant now enables us to change scale and reach out to women who, very often, give up on taking care of themselves for lack of access, time or means.»

Throughout the salon itinerary, qualified socio-aestheticians provide services and workshops, combining aesthetic techniques and support adapted to the needs of the most vulnerable.

Pauline Avenel-Lam, Executive Director of the L'Oréal Foundation, reminds us: «Through Beauty For A Better Life, it's the L'Oréal Foundation's historic conviction: access to skincare, well-being and self-esteem should never be a privilege, but a lever of emancipation accessible to all women.»

The two roadshows will tour France, region by region, over a five-month period, with a schedule of around 140 stops, and will complement the projects carried out with some forty medical, medico-social and social associations.