My Honest Guide to Korean Pharmacy Shopping: 3 Locations, Real Reviews

Hello, I'm Joy, the one who previously wrote a review of the PDRN facial mask I personally used during my trip to Korea.

Today I'm back with a Korean pharmacy shopping guide based on places I actually visited in person. I'll be the first to admit I'm a shopping addict — but Olive Young and Daiso have pretty similar lineups across locations, so after a couple of visits, I stopped finding myself drawn back. Korean pharmacies (yakguk), on the other hand, were a first for me this trip, and they genuinely caught me off guard. Each one felt less like a traditional drugstore and more like a carefully curated wellness store.

In this post, I'll introduce the three Korean pharmacies I visited in person, along with the products I actually bought at each one.

Optima Wellness Museum Pharmacy, Gangnam Branch

• Address: 서울 강남구 강남대로102길 42 B1층, 1층
• Languages available: Chinese, English, Japanese
• Tax refund available, WeChat Pay and Alipay accepted

The moment I walked in, my honest first thought was, "Is this really a pharmacy?" The space felt completely different from the typical image of a Korean pharmacy. The pharmacies most people picture are small, with products lined up behind a simple display case. Even larger-format drugstores like CVS or Target tend to be focused on bulk sizes, with products just laid out in a straightforward way — functional, but not particularly easy to navigate.

Here, everything was organized by symptom and by product category, so even first-time visitors could find what they were looking for at a glance. It felt like a distinctly Korean approach to wellness retail — not just a place that sells medicine, but a thoughtfully organized space that makes Korean pharmacy shopping genuinely accessible for international travelers.

What especially stood out was that each section featured its own curated bestseller lineup, making it easy to choose even if you have no idea where to start. As you can see in the photo, brands like Dr.Reju-All were also grouped together as a complete brand lineup, which made it easy to compare products within the same range at once.

Personally, what caught my eye most were the set package deals. Compared to buying individual items, the bundles felt more worthwhile — and they were packaged nicely enough to work as gifts, which made them even harder to walk past.

One thing that really stood out from a traveler's perspective: for international visitors who aren't comfortable reading Korean, it's common to spend a lot of time searching for the right product — whether it's something for digestion, a basic travel medicine kit, or whatever a friend recommended back home. At most pharmacies, you end up either doing a lot of research beforehand or pointing at photos on your phone. Here, the category layout made it possible to shop intuitively, without any of that. If Gangnam is on your itinerary, Olive Young and Daiso are of course worth a visit — but I'd strongly recommend making time for a Korean pharmacy, too. The curated package sets alone are better than you might expect.

Next up is Myeongdong. To be honest, I didn't come here specifically for pharmacy shopping — I came with a friend to visit the Hello Kitty Cafe and have samgyetang for the first time.

Since Myeongdong is one of Seoul's most iconic tourist districts, it's packed with Korean fashion brands like 8seconds, street food stalls, Myeongdong Cathedral, and the legendary Myeongdong Kyoja noodles. Having my accommodation nearby meant I ended up wandering through the area multiple times throughout the trip.

That day, I tried samgyetang and pajeon for the first time — the broth was rich, deeply savory, and had a distinctly earthy quality I'm guessing comes from the ginseng. It reminded me of a very thick, restorative chicken soup. The Hello Kitty Cafe wasn't really my style, but my friend was thrilled, and honestly it made for a fun, different kind of afternoon.

Myeongdong Town Ready Young Pharmacy

• Address: 서울 중구 명동8가길 31 1층 명동타운 레디영약국(2호점)
• Languages available: Chinese, English, Japanese
• Tax refund available, WeChat Pay and Alipay accepted

Isn't the tiger character at the entrance adorable? The signage is positioned fairly high up, so I actually walked in without realizing it was a pharmacy at first — then immediately noticed everything on the shelves was medicine.

Inside, the space is divided into clear sections like eye care and K-wellness, and you can grab a blue shopping basket and browse at your own pace. It feels a lot like shopping at a well-organized drugstore — comfortable and easy to navigate. Fair warning: if you're on a budget, this place will test your willpower.

It's also fully set up for international travelers, with Tax Refund and WowPass services available on top of the multilingual staff. And since the whole pharmacy's signature color is blue, it's genuinely hard to miss on the streets of Myeongdong.

The biggest highlight was the brand pop-up zone and the Ready Young Pick corner. The pop-up zone in particular stood out to me — and for a specific reason.

The brand pop-up zone solves this directly. You can see at a glance which Korean pharmacy brands are currently stocked, browse by brand rather than by product type, and compare a full lineup in one spot. For international travelers who are interested in Korean pharmacy skincare but aren't sure where to start, this is genuinely useful.

The product range itself was impressive: pharmacy skincare staples like Acnon cream, Aclean gel, Rejuvenex, and Dr.Reju-All cream were all well-stocked, alongside everyday pharmacy items like pain relief patches and eye drops. Both tourists and local Koreans were actively shopping, which always feels like a reliable sign that a place is worth visiting.

What left the biggest impression, though, was the staff. When you're worried about a language barrier, you often end up just showing a photo and saying "this, please" — but here, the pharmacists came up first and asked if you needed help. Being able to shop comfortably without stressing about communication made a real difference, and it's a big reason I'd especially recommend this pharmacy to international travelers visiting Myeongdong.

The last stop on my Korea trip was Busan — my first time in the city. Flying down was surprisingly easy and the round-trip fare was under ₩200,000, so it was an easy decision. I wanted to see the ocean, but I also wanted to experience somewhere a bit different from Seoul's main tourist corridor. Busan felt like the right call.

The best-known areas are Gwangalli, Haeundae, and Seomyeon — and I went with the classic choice, Haeundae. It has the beach right there, Haeundae Street for night market browsing, and plenty of hotels across different price ranges, so keeping accommodation costs reasonable was manageable.

Haeundae Pharmacy, Busan

• Address: 부산광역시 해운대구 중동1로36 1층
• Languages available: Chinese, English, Japanese
• Tax refund available

At the Haeundae pharmacy, I wasn't really in shopping mode — I was dealing with cold symptoms that had started creeping up near the end of the trip. It was close to 10 p.m. and the next day was a weekend, so a clinic visit wasn't realistic. A pharmacy was the logical next step.

What I found interesting was a dedicated section for herbal medicine-based cold remedies. Coming from a background where cold medicine usually means a syrup or a tablet, seeing warm, drinkable herbal formulas — the kind that reminded me of Ssanghwa Tea — was genuinely new. It's a small but telling detail: Korea's traditional medicine culture is quietly woven into everyday Korean pharmacy life in a way that feels natural rather than novelty

If the Optima Wellness and Ready Young pharmacies I covered earlier felt intentionally tourist-friendly — clear concepts, curated product zones, multilingual support front and center — Haeundae Pharmacy felt much more like a neighborhood spot that local Busan residents actually use day-to-day. They do have English-speaking staff and products that travelers will find useful, but the overall atmosphere is more grounded and everyday.

If you want to experience what Korean pharmacy culture actually looks like beyond the tourist-facing version, I'd recommend stopping by a local pharmacy like this one alongside the more curated spots.

Reviews of Products I Personally Bought After Visiting Pharmacies

To sum up the items I bought after visiting a total of three pharmacies on this trip to Korea, they basically fell into three categories, everyday medications, pharmacy skincare, and bandages and ointments. They are products you can commonly find at pretty much any pharmacy, but picking them out in a Korean pharmacy in person, I was surprised by how many options there were and how well put together the selections were.

I’ll also share my honest reviews from trying each category myself, along with some recommended picks!

Skincare Products (Dr.Reju-All PDRN facial mask, Mela-tone Cream)

I had a clear reason for buying these products. During my trip to Korea, my condition worsened and my skin broke out badly. Going to a dermatologist would mean making a separate appointment, and the cost felt burdensome, so I decided to take care of my skin with pharmacy skincare products instead.

On the pharmacist’s recommendation, I mixed dexpanthenol (Dexpanthenol) cream into the lotion I normally use and applied it, and I could definitely feel the itchiness and redness calm down quickly. As for the PDRN facial mask, I’d already been using the brand’s PDRN cream, and since it had helped so much with restoring my skin condition, this time I bought the facial mask, which was half the price of the cream. My bumpy, dry skin became noticeably more hydrated, and I made great use of it, 4 of the 6 sheets during the trip, and the remaining 2 on my flight home.

I bought the Mela-tone cream because I was drawn to the fact that it’s a new product from Dr.Reju-All. I’ve tried their PDRN and the results were so good that it’s a brand I trust, so when this new product came out, I felt confident buying it and I’m looking forward to seeing the results. I’m also planning to give this to my younger sibling, who has acne scars from their teenage years.

Wound Care Items (Day Band, Iodine, Madecassol, Hand Sanitizer)

When I was getting ready for the trip, I didn’t pack these because I wondered, “Will I really need this?”, but once I actually started traveling, I found myself needing bandages, acne patches, and hand sanitizer more often than I expected. I truly realized they’re travel essentials.

Out of everything, the best purchase was the large cut-to-size bandage in the bottom left of the photo. You can cut it to whatever size you want with scissors, or stick on the whole piece for larger areas, so it was really versatile. I mostly cut it and used it on acne scar spots, and I was very satisfied because it peeled off gently and the marks calmed down faster than I expected.

Cold medicine products (drinkable cold medicine)

Once I got back to my accommodation, I realized all the cold medicine I bought was the drinkable type. The one I mentioned earlier that felt like an herbal medicine is the red packaged cold medicine on the left in the photo.

And the color-coded set is called Coldaewon, it’s divided into different types depending on your cold symptoms, so you can choose the one that fits what you have. For me, they all worked really well, to the point that I even brought Coldaewon back as a souvenir and as a go-to medicine to keep on hand. It’s under 5,000 won so it’s not pricey, and maybe because it’s a liquid type, it kicked in pretty quickly too.

How was it? I hope this Korean pharmacy shopping guide was helpful, even just a little. There's a much wider range of great products at Korean pharmacies than what I covered here — so if you get the chance to visit, I'd encourage you to take your time and explore for yourself!