# Brief History of COSMAX
'COSMAX 코스맥스 (company website)' is one of the biggest cosmetics manufacturers (OEM/ODM) in Korea and compete with Kolmar Korea for the biggest and leading Korean ODM title.
Lee Kyung-Soo (Bloomberg profile), the founder/Chairman/CEO of COSMAX, graduated Seoul National University with a major pharmacy in 1970 and worked for several companies like Dong-A Pharmaceutical Co., Oricom (advertising agency) and then joined Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co. just like the found of Kolmar Korea Yoon Dong-Han.
After few years at Daewoong Pharma, he became a managing director of the company but he decided to start his own business and founded Milott Korea in 1992 with a partnership with Milott, a huge and well-known cosmetics ODM company in Japan.
2 years after founding Milott Korea, Kim decided to discontinue the partnership with Milott and changed the company name COSMAX. He thought that this cosmetics manufacturing business is all about "their own technology" and started focusing on research and development by themselves.
He lost many of clients after discontinuing partnership with Milott as COSMAX was quite new company and Korean ODM industry was not that well-recognized. There were only 4 members at COSMAX and they all struggled to survive.in 1997, COSMAX established their own manufacturing site and their business started growing fast. They got CGMP certificate for the site in 1998.
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# Manufacturing Facilities & Abilities
COSMAX now runs 4 different factories in Korea: 1 for skin care products, 1 for Lip & Mascara, 1 for Powder, and the last one for sheet masks.
Factories equip various high-end equipment like water purification system (reverse osmosis, electro deionized system, etc.), 3-level structured manufacturing line, material measurement system, packaging system (lipstick charger, automatic skin lotion charger, swirl charger, wet powder former), et cetera.
To prove their high level manufacturing quality, they have tired to acquired various certificates: ISO certification for Quality Management, Environmental Management, Safety and Health Management, International Cosmetics Standard (GMP),etc. They also obtained ECO-CERT, CGMP certificate from US FDA, Health Canada certificate, and Australia TGA GMP as well.
As they work with global cosmetics brands closely, they have proved to meet the standard of those global companies. They meet the requirements for manufactured products' quality presented by L'Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Mary Kay, Eastee Lauder, and Shiseido.COSMAX also runs huge research organizations called "Research & Innovation" teams in Korea, China, USA, and Indonesia. They have over 300 researchers in-house and those researchers develop products for over 600 brands.
COSMAX lab / Source: COSMAX website
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# Global Expansion
Mr.Lee was quite insightful as he predicted that Chinese cosmetics market will grow very quickly. In 2004, he decided to establish manufacturing facilities in China and COSMAX was the first Korean ODM company that establishes manufacturing site in China.
"Many people tried to persuade me not to establish it as there were very limited demands of cosmetics in China. However, I thought many Chinese women will soon use many of skin care and makeup products as Chinese economy was growing and women's earnings would grow accordingly. Now our current business status says it was a good decision."
China manufacturing facilities received supports from Korea in early stage, however, now over 100 researchers are working in COSMAX China and they develop products that suit Chinese the most.
COSMAX also established facilities in other countries like USA, Indonesia, and Australia and now they produce products for global cosmetics companies like L'Oreal, Nerium, Johnson & Johnson, Herbalife, et cetera.
In 2017, COSMAX also acquired an US New Jersey-based ODM company "NU WORLD" at US$50 million. A makeup-focused manufacturer Nu World recorded annual sales of US$105 million in 2016 and their manufacturing ability specialized in makeup can help COSMAX improve manufacturing ability on makeup (which always has been a weakness of Korean ODMs).
COSMAX China facility / Source: COSMAX website
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# Competition with Kolmar Korea
As I mentioned above, founders of COSMAX and Kolmar Korea used to work at a same company Daewoong Pharmaceutical as executives (Kolmar Korea's founder was a bit senior as he was a VP at the company) and now they are competing for the No.1 Korean Cosmetics ODM title.
Only few years ago like 2010, Kolmar Korea was recognized as the firm no.1 cosmetics ODM in Korea. However, after COSMAX's business partnership with global corporations like L'Oreal and acquisition of Nu World, COSMAX is now recognized as the biggest cosmetics ODM.
As these ranks can vary by different measurements but it is quite clear that both companies lead Korean cosmetics ODM business and make it more famous and popular around the world.
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# List of products manufactured by Kolmar Korea
COSMAX also produces for many different brands so it is almost impossible to find them out clearly, but here are some brands and products manufactured by COSMAX.
I personally remember their best & steady selling product 'Time Revolution The First Treatment Essence' of Missha as it was such a global best seller and it proves that K-beauty has come so far.
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