kylie jenner using glass skin wand next to picture of inventor kim byung-hoon.png

Kylie & Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber and Khloé Kardashian all swear by the £240 Medicube Booster Pro—now racing off UK shelves.

Kylie Jenner’s fifteen-second TikTok clip, which shows her gliding Medicube’s sleek Booster Pro wand across her cheeks for an “instant glass-skin glow”, has raced through millions of phones and unleashed a shopping frenzy. The viral surge sent shares of Seoul-listed APR Corp. about 200 per cent higher this year, inflating 36-year-old founder Kim Byung-Hoon’s 31 per cent holding to roughly US $1.3 billion, a jump that landed him on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

@kyliejenner current favorite glass skin routine 💓 #medicube #medicubepartner @medicube global ♬ original sound - Kylie Jenner

The six-mode Booster Pro—launched in October 2023—packs micro-currents and LED light into a lipstick-sized case and promises spa-level treatment at home. UK shoppers can pick it up for £172.95 with Prime delivery on Amazon, while Boots now features Medicube’s Age-R range online and K-beauty specialist Pureseoul sells a limited pink edition for £360 in its London shops and website.

Britain’s appetite for Korean cosmetics is rising fast. Market researchers put the UK K-beauty sector at US $584 million in 2023 and expect it to almost double to US $1.15 billion by 2032, thanks to social-media trends like “glass skin”. APR already earns more than 70 per cent of its revenue overseas, and executives say the UK is now one of its quickest-growing regions, helped by an e-commerce-first strategy that skips duty-free counters for TikTok-powered demand.

Kim’s route to ten-digit wealth began with mobile apps—he built a dating platform after a student spell in California—before pivoting to skincare in 2014. He added high-tech devices in 2021 and is, according to chief financial officer Shin Jae-Ha, the product’s biggest evangelist, using the Booster Pro on himself for thirty minutes every day. Sales back up the habit: APR says the wand has shifted more than 770,000 units worldwide in its first year.

Success has brought lifestyle upgrades as well as market capitalisation (now above US $4 billion). Local media confirm Kim recently paid ₩29 billion (≈ £21 million) for a penthouse in Seoul’s Seongsu-dong, setting a national price-per-metre record and placing him among the country’s most visible new billionaires.

Even with glossy headlines, challenges loom. A sharper slowdown in Chinese demand and any future UK import duties could test margins. For now, though, one perfectly timed swipe has turned a Korean gadget into Britain’s hottest beauty accessory—and its low-profile inventor into the newest member of the billionaire club.

Glass-Skin TikTok Viral Wand Turns South Korean Inventor into Billionaire Overnight

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