Here's why

some of the best,

most affordable skin

care is about to

get more expensive.

The Trump administration

recently proposed a 25 percent

tariff on goods

coming into the U.S.

from South Korea,

which means fans of Korean

skin-care and beauty

products, or K-beauty,

may have to start paying more

for what used to be cheap,

high-quality skin care.

When Korean

beauty products

came to the U.S. several years

ago, beauty fans were obsessed

with how affordable

and, honestly, better

they were than U.S.

products,

especially our sunscreen.

Our FDA is notoriously slow

at approving new

sunblock technology, so

compared to

a lot of other countries,

our sun care is outdated.

It's usually a lot

gloopier, harder to rub in,

and more expensive.

But K-beauty

sunscreen has newer filters

that rub in more easily.

They don't leave a white

cast on your skin,

and they usually round about $15,

when the closest

counterpart in the U.S.

would be, like, $40.

So skin-care

enthusiasts like me

have been importing K-beauty

to get access

to that better sunscreen

and to products that use ingredients

you wouldn't normally

find in U.S. skin care,

like snail mucin.

But now that snail mucin

is caught in a trade war.

With this new tariff,

one expert

I talked to said K-beauty

brands will probably wait

at least a year before

figuring out their next moves—

so whether that's to just stop

focusing so much on U.S.

markets

or maybe to double down

and move their factories

into the United States,

where they'd be able

to avoid the tariffs.

But ironically,

even if the tariffs do succeed

and bring more manufacturing

into the U.S.,

in the case of K-beauty,

that'll mean that the products

have lost their strongest appeal:

that they aren't made in the USA.

One really famous K-beauty

brand, Beauty of Joseon,

moved their manufacturing

to the U.S.

a while back,

and beauty enthusiasts

have been less

than impressed with the products

they've designed

for the U.S. market.

Their sunscreen,

which they formulated

with the older filters approved by

the FDA,

has been criticized,

fairly or not, by beauty reviewers

as just not being as good

as the Korean version.

So when it comes to tariffs,

"Made in

the USA"

might not mean you're actually

getting the best

skin care out there.