Where to Buy Condoms, Pads and Tampons in Korea
It’s 11 p.m., you’re in a country whose language you don’t read, and you need something you’d normally buy without thinking. Nobody packs for this, and it’s not the kind of question you want to mime at a stranger. Here’s the whole answer, plainly: what’s stocked where, what the Korean labels actually mean, and which pieces of old packing advice you can safely ignore.
The four places
| Where | Open | Stocks | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Convenience store (GS25, CU, 7-Eleven, emart24) | 24/7 | Condoms, pads, liners, tampons | Right now, at any hour |
| Olive Young | ~09:30–22:30 | Everything, widest choice — incl. organic pads and deodorant | Choice — the one-stop option |
| Pharmacy (약국) | Daytime, varies | All of the above, plus advice | When you also need medicine |
| Big mart (E-Mart, Homeplus, Lotte Mart) | ~10:00–23:00 | Widest range, best price per unit | Stocking up, not emergencies |
Two notes on that table. Olive Young’s hours differ branch to branch, so read the door rather than trusting a number — the shop below opens 09:30 on weekdays, 10:00 at weekends and holidays, and shuts at 22:30 either way.
The hours live on the door, in English · ⓒ @BalliBalliSeoul
The second note is the one that matters at midnight: the convenience store is the only line in that table that never closes.
One Olive Young aisle — condoms, pads, liners, the lot · ⓒ @BalliBalliSeoul
The short version: convenience store if it’s urgent, Olive Young if you want a choice — the photo above is a single aisle, and it has everything in this article on it. The rest is detail.
Pads: the default here
Korea runs on pads. They’re in every convenience store, usually on an open shelf near the household goods, and the selection at Olive Young or a mart is enormous. Two things read differently than you might expect:
Sizes are named by length and use, not by flow. Instead of “regular / super”, packs are labelled roughly:
- 소형 (small) — light days / liners
- 중형 (medium) — the standard daytime pad
- 대형 (large) — heavier days
- 오버나이트 (overnight) — and Korean overnight pads are long. Wing-to-wing coverage well past what most Western brands sell as “night” is normal here. If you’ve never used one, the first one is a surprise; a lot of people end up preferring them.
Organic and cotton lines are everywhere. Korean shoppers pay close attention to materials — a 2017 controversy over pad ingredients permanently changed the market — so “순면” (pure cotton) and organic lines occupy serious shelf space, especially at Olive Young. If you have sensitive skin, this market is unusually well supplied for you.
One more note from people who’ve switched: Korean pads tend to run a little smaller than the equivalent size elsewhere. If you have a size you rely on, buy one pack first and check before committing to a bulk purchase.
Prices, from an Olive Young shelf in August 2026: packs run from about ₩4,500 to ₩11,500 depending on brand, count and whether it’s an organic line. Convenience stores charge a small premium over marts for the convenience you’re buying.
Panty liners: easy, everywhere
Short answer, because this one is surprisingly hard to find information about: panty liners (팬티라이너) are as easy to buy as pads. Same shelf, same shops — convenience stores, Olive Young, pharmacies, marts — with a full range of thicknesses and scented / unscented options.
They’re also the cheapest thing in this article: a 40-count pack for ₩3,050 was sitting on the Olive Young shelf in the photo above. There is no version of this where packing them is worth the luggage space.
Tampons: the old warning is out of date
If you’ve read that “you can’t get tampons in Korea,” that advice has aged badly. Convenience stores and Olive Young both stock them, as do supermarkets, pharmacies and every online shop. Residents say the same in threads like this one on r/Living_in_Korea.
What’s still true is narrower:
- The selection is smaller than for pads — fewer brands, fewer absorbencies — and prices run a bit higher: about ₩7,500 for a box of 12 on the shelf in the photo above, where a pack of pads starts around ₩4,500.
- Non-applicator styles take up more of the shelf than they might at home. Applicator tampons exist; you’re just choosing from a shorter list.
So: don’t pack three months’ worth. Bring a supply only of the specific thing you’re picky about, and buy the rest here.
Menstrual cups are legal and sold here, mostly online and at larger stores, but they remain a niche product — don’t count on finding one in a hurry.
Condoms: easier than you think
Genuinely simple. Every convenience store sells them, 24 hours a day, either on an open shelf or in a small display by the register. Olive Young, pharmacies and marts all carry them too, with more variety.
Three practical notes:
- Nobody cares. There’s no age check for adults, no under-the-counter routine, no reaction at the register. This is a normal purchase in a country where the transaction is quiet by default.
- Fit is written in English, thickness in millimetres — don’t confuse the two. Boxes are labelled with fit names you can read at a glance: Slim Fit, Original Fit, Large Fit, plus texture variants like Air Fit or Dot Fit. The mm number is thickness, not width — Japanese and Korean brands compete on thinness, so 0.03mm, 0.02mm, even 0.01mm are marketing claims about how thin it is (Sagami’s ultra-thin line is the famous example). A smaller mm number does not mean a smaller size.
- Thinness is what you’re paying for. The mm number drives the price far more than the brand does. On the shelf in the photo above: ₩13,900 for six at 0.02mm (about ₩2,300 each) against ₩28,000 for five at 0.01mm (about ₩5,600 each) — more than double, per unit, for one hundredth of a millimetre. Ordinary boxes start around ₩5,000. If you just need condoms, ignore the decimals and buy the normal box.
Empty street, open shop — this is the 2 a.m. answer · ⓒ @BalliBalliSeoul
Vending machines exist in some motels and nightlife areas, but you’ll rarely need one. On most Seoul streets the nearest lit window at 2 a.m. is a convenience store, and it sells what you came for.
Deodorant: another outdated warning
“Bring deodorant to Korea” is the single most repeated piece of packing advice in expat forums, and it’s also out of date. Olive Young carries plenty of it, alongside marts and online shops, including imported brands.
The grain of truth left in the old advice is about type, not availability: the domestic market skews toward lighter, fragrance-led products, because a large share of the Korean population produces very little underarm odour and the category never needed to be built out the way it was in the West. If you depend on a heavy-duty clinical antiperspirant specifically, check the imported shelf — or bring your usual one.
For everyone else: buy it here, like anything else.
What you can’t just buy off a shelf
One boundary worth stating: emergency contraception (the morning-after pill) requires a prescription in Korea. It is not sold over the counter at pharmacies or anywhere else — you need to see a doctor first, typically at an OB-GYN (산부인과) or a general clinic, and then fill the prescription at a pharmacy. Plan for a clinic visit, not a shop run.
If you’re not sure which kind of clinic you need for anything else, our department guide decodes the signs — Korean clinics are labelled by specialty, not by doctor.
The Korean part
None of this is hard once you know where to go — the difficulty is entirely in not being able to read a label or ask a question at the moment you need to. If you’re standing in an aisle unsure what you’re holding, send us a photo: our anything-else concierge service reads it, tells you what it is, and can point you to the nearest place that stocks what you actually want.
Get it sorted
Stuck in an aisle, or not sure where to look? Message us on WhatsApp — send a photo of the shelf or just tell us what you need, and we’ll tell you where to go, in English. First answer is free.
The one-line version: convenience store for right now, Olive Young for choice, pads and liners everywhere, tampons and deodorant are available despite what the old guides say, and the morning-after pill needs a doctor. Almost none of this deserves luggage space.