I’m adding a new location to my NYC Chinatown K-Beauty Shopping Guide, a small store simply called The Beauty Shop. It’s been in business for the last 10 years on 57 Division St. Store #C, NYC and has been an official distributor of The History of Whoo, O HUI and ISA KNOX – yes all this time!

The shop has two mini billboards of O HUI and The History of Whoo outside and I remember watching these signs change as new products rolled out growing up. I’m not really in the right budget range (or age range for that matter?) for these brands so I’ve never been curious enough to actually go in but ever since my Asian Beauty obsession has grown as with the popularity with these brands in the United States, I thought I would do a service to the online community and share this hidden gem (it’s not even listed on Yelp)!

Click to read more and see the full tour.

Getting There/Location

You be happy to see that The Beauty Shop is right around the corner of the new The Yeon location (opened May 2015). The Beauty Shop is across the street from Manhattan Bridge and it’s about a two block walk off the touristy trek (think Canal St, Mott St, Bayard St) but you get to pass by the Confucius statue and Tous les Jours – a tasty, trendy Korean bakery- is opening soon on Division St. I love their baked cheese breads and green tea cake loafs! 

The Beauty Shop (official distributor of O HUI, The History of Whoo and ISA KNOX)
57 Division St. Store #C, NYC
646.613.8621

My guide planned the best route coming from the Canal St. subway station so after you’re done shopping at The Face Shop/oo35mm, continue to walk down Bayard St. until you hit Bowery Street and you’ll find yourself in front of Confucius Plaza (below). The arrows in the picture indicate traffic direction, so walk AGAINST car traffic on Bowery St once you’re across the street from NY Noodletown/McDonald’s.

Walk along Bowery towards Division St. You’ll see these rows of columns like this:

At the end of Bowery Street (picture above) you’ll see the back of the Confucius statue and you’ll be given two choices: to go to The Beauty Shop/The Yeon on your left or to the Amore store on your right.  Choices of the century people. This is more important than voting.

For the purposes of THIS post, let’s turn to the left onto Division St and go to The Yeon/The Beauty Shop. I will do a Photo Tour for the Amore store in an upcoming post.

“Oh, hai Mr. Confucius. Can you tell me where The Yeon is?”  ::grumble::

Ok, this is Division St. See that blue and white bridge?  That’s the Manhattan Bridge, walk towards it but don’t go underneath/walk past it! There’s going to be a Tous les Jours opening on this block (don’t have a opening date yet) so pick up some Korean bakery/pastry goodies when that time comes!

I feel like this is soon going to be the new little k-town block within Chinatown, NYC.

So finally The Yeon is in the corner but you’ll see that the yellow signage sticking out from the other store COMPLETELY covers The Yeon’s sign. Do not fret, just keep skipping/dancing to the corner.

This picture is a little cluttered, I know but thought it was important to also note that while both The Beauty Shop and The Yeon both say that are on Division St, The Beauty Shop’s entrance is actually more on Market Street because after all, you are turning around the corner of Division Street.

History of Whoo advertisement next to the door.

Photo Tour

So I forgot to take a photo of the overall store layout but it was so tiny in there anyway that once you walk in, you’ll see the only glass counter and one sales lady. There are three walls of O HUI, The History of Whoo and ISA KNOX and to the left of the store, hair and color cosmetics and testers. They also sell masks but they are kind of tucked away since the store is so small there’s not really a display – more on this later. Ok, onto the photo tour!

Door entrance, also advertising SNP’s new animal sheet masks (of which I’m not a fan of). The depth of the store pretty much ends at the box you see on the floor. But it’s okay, it’s compact with premium k-beauty goodies!

O HUI and Guerisson 9 Horse Complex Cream below.

The History of Whoo available right here in Chinatown, New York City! Are we freaking out yet?

ISA KNOX! BEAUTIFUL WALL. Let my eyes soak you in.

Yay! Testers!

I asked the sales lady what she would recommend for me and she looked at my face and saw I had dark circles (frownie face). She recommended an eye cream and showed me the tester. Then she showed me this set with the full size Gongjinhyang Qi & Jin Cream.  I asked her if it was appropriate for my age and yes, it’s good for someone not yet deep into their 30’s but starting to think about anti-aging. If I remember correctly, the price for this set was $168? I can be completely off. I’m a terrible blogger.

Contents in the set, in English! …and in Chinese too.

Looking around more, I see the O HUI Cover Moist CC Cushion Special Set, CC Cream, SPF sunscreen in the glass counter.

Signage. This is the store owner, seems like a former Asian beauty queen.

Underneath is IPKN New York color cosmetics and a few Clio compacts that look old. I wouldn’t buy makeup here but they got the premium skincare from Korea down pat.

The left are testers of the O HUI CC Cream and other creams.  I would check the expiration dates of the actual boxes before paying just to be sure you’re getting a fresh product.

These History of Whoo Hair Ampoules look like they were flying off the shelves, $38. I tried the tester and dang, it was instant silky relief for my tresses but $38 is too steep for me.

Some more O HUI products. Not sure what they are. Tell this terrible blogger.

Store Experience

Are you done drooling yet? Done freaking out yet?! Okay some drawbacks of my experience. The sales lady knew proficient English but not enough to understand more specific questions. I had asked her if she had any more variety of masks other than the SNP animal masks and she just shook her head. Not sure if that was a “no, we don’t” or “no, I don’t understand you”.  She was Mandarin speaking (but I also don’t speak fluent Mandarin). I’m terrible and useless. 

Sales lady was nice enough to let me take pictures of the store but during the latter half of my visit, she started to get pushy on making a sale saying “You want to buy this? You want to buy it?” I would’ve bought maybe a few sheet masks to thank her for the trouble (which is why I started to ask if she had any more masks other than SNP) so I left graciously since I also wasn’t about to buy a $38 hair ampoule yet (maybe for my mom’s birthday soon….?). Nah she would kill me if she knew how expensive it was.

Takeaways

Be prepared with your research and recommendations before coming to the store because unless you’re Mandarin speaking, the salespeople might not be able to answer your questions. Alternatively you can just make a blind visit like me, and just browse to see what might interest you first and then go home to complete research to see if the product is right for you. However that comes with a warning to also feel some pressure to buy if you’re just there to browse since this is also a VERY small shop and you can’t hide from the sales lady’s attention.

It might be worth calling the store ahead of time to find out if they carry a certain product, what the price is or opening/closing hours. I forgot to take a business card (again I suck at this blogging thing). Their number is 646.613.8621. You might luck out and get someone who speaks proficient English.

I haven’t seen any other place that carries O HUI, The History of Whoo or ISA KNOX in a brick and mortar store so this is truly exciting to have an official distributor right here in NYC.

I’m not familiar with each brand’s lines so I couldn’t comment on what was available or not but hopefully for the afficiandoes here, you can ID which line from looking at the packaging. Was there anything worth noting on what The Beauty Shop carried?

Go next door to The Yeon if you left empty-handed. Muahaha! The Yeon is a bigger store and you’ll be sure to find more affordable Asian/Korean Beauty goodies for as little as $2.  I will be doing an in-depth photo tour of The Yeon in an upcoming post to round out my Chinatown Guide to K-Beauty Shopping!

Hope you enjoyed this. How did you like this post? Any questions? I will go back to get a business card to add store hours.