Korean men were wearing makeup 5,000 years before BTS existed.
K-Life
A K-Pop idol steps on stage. Perfect skin. Eyeliner. A look that took serious effort. And somewhere in the West, someone asks: “Why do Korean men wear makeup? Is it a K-Pop thing?”
Wrong. Korean men were doing this 1,500 years ago. Actually, probably much longer. K-Pop didn’t create this culture. It just brought back something that was briefly forgotten.
Korean Male Shamans Have Been Painting Their Faces Since Before History
Shamans across Siberia, Central Asia, and Mongolia still paint their faces during rituals today. It’s how they mark themselves as something between the human world and the divine. Korea was part of that same cultural world.
Korean male shamans — called baksu mudang — have been doing this for as long as anyone can trace. Korea is one of the oldest nations on earth, with a founding myth dating back to 2333 BC. And the country’s founding figure, Dangun, was both a king and a male shaman. So when did Korean men start wearing makeup? Probably around the same time Korea became Korea.
One more thing: if you’ve seen K-Pop Demon Hunters on Netflix, the lead characters are female shamans. That’s not fiction — it’s a tradition that goes back thousands of years.
“Flower Knights” — The Warriors Who Wore Foundation
About 1,500 years ago, a kingdom called Silla ruled the Korean peninsula. Think of it as ancient Korea — a monarchy with its own warriors, culture, and rigid social hierarchy.
Silla’s elite warrior class was called the Hwarang. The name translates as “Flower Knights.” That’s not a metaphor. These were the most respected fighters in the kingdom, and they wore makeup.
A Chinese scholar who visited Silla at the time wrote it down: noble families selected their most handsome young men, powdered and groomed them, gave them the title of Hwarang, and “all the people of the nation revered and served them.”
Earrings. Face powder. Reddened eyes. Jeweled hats. They went to war looking like this. And they won.
The belief behind it was straightforward: a beautiful appearance reflects a beautiful spirit. Makeup wasn’t vanity. It was self-cultivation.
They also danced. Sang. Hiked mountains to build endurance. Before battle, they performed choreographed group routines to raise morale. Sound familiar?
Here’s the part that matters: it was the Hwarang who ultimately unified the ancient kingdoms of the Korean peninsula. The flower knights didn’t just look good. They won wars and changed history.
Goryeo — Aristocratic Glamour and Makeup Found in the Grave
Silla eventually fell, and a new dynasty called Goryeo took over — roughly a thousand years ago. The grooming culture didn’t go anywhere.
A Chinese envoy who visited Goryeo wrote that men there applied powder to their faces after washing, to make their skin appear lighter and more refined.
And then there’s this: cosmetics have been found as burial goods in Goryeo male tombs. These men wanted their skincare in the afterlife. If that’s not commitment, what is?
Goryeo was a dynasty of elaborate aristocratic culture. If you ever visit Seoul, the National Museum of Korea covers this period in depth. While you’re there, you might also spot the folk painting origins of characters like tiger Duffy and magpie Seo from K-Pop Demon Hunters — those characters come from Joseon-era folk paintings displayed in the same museum. A Netflix show suddenly starts making a lot more sense.
Planning a trip to Seoul? This five-day itinerary has everything you need.
Joseon — The Ideal Man Was Not Jacked
About 600 years ago, a new dynasty called Joseon took power. Korea was now deeply Confucian — a strict social order built around scholarship, hierarchy, and discipline. This is where the story gets interesting.
In 1592, Japan invaded Korea. Japanese soldiers had to bring back enemy heads as proof of their kills — but Korean and Japanese soldiers were hard to tell apart. The solution: pierced ears meant Korean. Japanese men didn’t pierce their ears.
Even under Joseon’s strict Confucian code, the habit of men adorning themselves was simply too deep to uproot.
Now — what did the ideal Joseon man actually look like? Not muscular. Not rugged. The most admired man had pale skin, long slender fingers, refined features, and the bearing of a scholar. Think less action hero, more poet who has never seen a gym.
There’s a term worth knowing: gisaeng orabi. Not commonly used anymore, but it still exists. Literally “the gisaeng’s older brother” — gisaeng being a class of trained female entertainers, roughly comparable to geisha in Japan. The term actually meant something closer to a man who lives in a gisaeng’s orbit. It sounds like an insult. In practice, it was used to describe a man with striking, almost feminine good looks — pretty rather than rugged. Older Korean women still use it today.
Look at Korean folk paintings from the late Joseon period. The men in them — fine eyes, pale skin, delicate features — look remarkably like a modern K-Pop idol lineup. That is not a coincidence.
The scholars, too, checked their appearance every single morning. Not out of vanity — out of discipline. A disheveled appearance meant a disheveled mind. Joseon scholars carried small personal mirrors everywhere. They just couldn’t post selfies.
Then It Disappeared
And then, in the space of a few decades, it was gone.
In 1910, Japan colonized Korea. For the next 35 years, traditional Korean culture was systematically suppressed. After liberation came the Korean War in 1950, which left the country devastated and most of its people struggling to survive. Grooming became a luxury nobody could afford.
Then came the American military presence — and with it, a new idea of masculinity. Tough. Hard. No-nonsense. A man who wore makeup became, suddenly, a strange man.
Five thousand years of cultural memory, reversed in a generation.
What K-Pop Actually Did
In the late 1990s, K-Pop emerged. Men in makeup reappeared on stage.
The West asked: “Why do Korean men wear makeup?”
Wrong question.
Korean men didn’t start wearing makeup. Korea always had a culture of men taking care of their appearance. What K-Pop idols do — full makeup, styled hair, a deliberately crafted look — is just the more expressive end of something that was always there. The root is the same. The volume got turned up.
The Hwarang went to war in foundation. The scholars checked their collars in pocket mirrors every morning. BTS steps on stage in eyeliner. It’s the same line, drawn across five thousand years.
K-Pop didn’t create this. It just reminded everyone it existed.
Two More Things Worth Knowing
Western men did this too. Louis XIV of France wore high heels and face powder. Eighteenth-century European aristocrats wore elaborate wigs and rouge. The idea that makeup is inherently feminine is historically very recent — and very specific to certain cultures. Korea just remembers it differently. And longer.
Korean people have been considered attractive for a very long time. A 13th-century Arab geographer named Al-Qazwini described the ancient kingdom of Silla as a land of exceptionally beautiful people. In 1898, British traveler Isabella Bird Bishop wrote in her book Korea and Her Neighbours: “Koreans are certainly a good-looking people.”
That’s not K-Pop talking. That’s the historical record.
The Hwarang sang, danced, and trained together. Sound familiar?
K-Pop lyrics carry more than any translation can capture. Once you know what’s actually being said, the songs you’ve been listening to will hit completely differently. These breakdowns are worth reading:
BTS “Body to Body” — the Arirang section that one critic called a McGuffin. He was wrong.
BTS “Body to Body” Lyrics Explained — Arirang Meaning & Korean References
CORTIS “RedRed” — why it’s harder to decode than it looks.
CORTIS “RedRed” Lyrics Explained — Why It’s Hard to Decode
CORTIS “TNT” — the Korean underneath the hook.
CORTIS “TNT” Korean Lyrics Explained — What the Translation Misses
TWS “You, You” — what “Dda-reum Dda-reum” actually means.
TWS “You, You” Lyrics Explained — What “Dda-reum Dda-reum” Means
Curious about the cultural context behind your favorite K-Pop song or Korean film? Drop it in the comments — I’ll do my best to explain it properly in an upcoming post.
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