RYO

RYO is a South Korean haircare brand launched in 2008 by Amorepacific, the country's largest cosmetics company [1][5]. It specialises in scalp and hair-loss care, building its formulas around Korean herbal-medicine traditions known as Hanbang and pairing them with Amorepacific's scalp research, which the company traces back to 1973 [1]. The brand's name is styled with the tagline "Root Your Own beauty."

The brand remains active. Its ranges are still sold across several Asian markets, and it drew editorial coverage as recently as 2025 [7].

RYO was created as a premium haircare line focused on a single idea: that healthy hair begins with a healthy scalp. Its mission, as stated by the company, is to "achieve the beauty of full, healthy hair" through "scalp and fundamental hair root care," using Asian ingredients to offer tailored answers to hair-loss concerns [1]. The approach blends traditional Korean herbal ingredients with laboratory-developed formulas — a "herbal-meets-science" positioning that the brand carries across its product lines.

Its formulas draw on a roster of herbal ingredients, among them Korean ginseng, green tea, camellia, ginger, soybeans, and traditional herbal-medicine components such as scutellaria, licorice, and biota seeds [4]. The scalp research that underpins the range comes from parent company Amorepacific, which has studied scalp and hair care for decades.

RYO's best-known product is the Jayangyoonmo shampoo, its anti-hair-loss flagship, which the company describes as having sustained success in Korea and the ASEAN region. According to Amorepacific, the anti-hair-loss line was one of the best-selling anti-hair-loss shampoos in Korea, holding more than 40 percent of the domestic herbal-medicine shampoo market and staying on top of that category for six consecutive years after launch [4].

The brand has since expanded into several themed ranges: Root:Gen for hair thinning, Hambitmo for damage care, and Ginsengbo, an anti-ageing line for hair and scalp. In some markets it also sells the ChoUiBang shampoo and other scalp-specific formulas [6]. A 2025 ELLE India review, testing the Root:Gen and Strengthen & Volume ranges, described RYO as a premium option that works "from the scalp upward" [7].

RYO launched in South Korea in 2008 and released its anti-hair-loss line the following year. International expansion began soon after. The brand entered Japan in 2012 through the Shop Channel home-shopping network, where its ChoUiBang shampoo became a top seller within six months. It moved into Taiwan and China in 2013 [6], and in July 2015 launched its anti-hair-loss line specifically for the Chinese market, targeting hypermarkets, drugstores, and department-store premium counters [4].

The brand's development has drawn on market-specific research. Amorepacific ran a 2011–2012 survey of 1,343 Chinese women across six cities and found they tended to experience hair loss in their thirties — earlier than Korean women, who reported it in their forties — and said it would use the findings to shape products for that market [6].

RYO is one of more than thirty beauty and personal-care brands owned by Amorepacific, the South Korean group founded in 1945 and described as the largest cosmetics company in South Korea and one of the ten largest in the world [5]. Within Amorepacific's portfolio, RYO sits alongside brands such as Sulwhasoo, LANEIGE, Innisfree, ETUDE, Mamonde, AESTURA, and COSRX.

RYO is an active brand. It continues to be distributed across multiple regions — including Korea, the ASEAN countries, China, and Japan — and in India it is sold exclusively through the retailer Nykaa [7]. The most recent documented activity is an August 2025 editorial review covering its current Root:Gen and Strengthen & Volume ranges [7].