A Study on the Relationship Between the Women College Students Caring for Appearance and Make-Up Behaviors for Beauty Salon Startups Amidst the COVID-19 CRISIS

Purpose: The beauty industry quenches the basic human needs, and it may also be said that it is a necessary startup in the present time when appearance is a form of competitiveness. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between caring for appearance and make-up behaviors of women college students for the beauty salon startups targeting women college students amidst the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Method: As for the research method, the questionnaire method was used for women college students in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. The questionnaire was consisted of caring for appearance, make-up behaviors, and demo-graphic variables, while frequency, percentage, and average were calculated to discover the demographic charac-teristics of the research subjects, and to identify and understand the relationship between caring for appearance and make-up behaviors, the multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the Pearson s moment corre-lation and causal relationship. Results: As a result of the analysis, first, caring for appearance was derived as such factors including focus on appearance in trend, self-development, and sexual attractiveness, while make-up behaviors were derived as such five factors including prevalence, conformity, subjectivity, instrumentality, and ostentation. Second, all sub-factors of the motive of caring for appearance of women college students turned out to have a statistically significant, positive correlation with all sub-factors of the make-up behaviors. Third, the motive for caring for appearance turned out to have a statistically significant effect on the sexual attractiveness and focus on appearance of the make-up behaviors across all sub-factors, and the factors of prevalence and instrumentality turned out to have a significant effect excluding the focus on appearance in trend. Conclusion: Amidst the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, beauty salons are faced with a crisis. To overcome this crisis and proceed with a re-startup, a far more specialized research on the marketing subjects will be needed. Therefore, it is expected and hoped that this study will serve as the basic data for re-startup amidst the crisis and will also be used as the marketing materials for the beauty workers aspiring to take a new leap forward.