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Step Aside Chanel: North Korea's 'Raccoon Eye Makers' Get State Push

Reuters

   SEOUL - North Korea is encouraging its beauty-conscious middle class
   women to choose domestic cosmetics over foreign brands in an effort to
   boost self-reliance as international sanctions deepen.

   Promoting homegrown beauty has been a political strategy since the days
   of state founder Kim Il Sung, but has become more focused under his
   foreign-educated grandson, Kim Jong Un.

   The international popularity in recent years of South Korea's K-beauty
   trend -- innovative cosmetic products with natural ingredients such as
   ginseng and snail slime -- has added momentum, say defectors who fled
   the North and experts who study the isolated state.

   But North Korea's push has yet to translate to a winning formula,
   marred by quality issues and constraints in obtaining foreign
   ingredients because of sanctions over its nuclear program.

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