We talk to Christine Chang, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Glow Recipe on the brand’s, youthful, clean, colourful and unapologetically fun values.
“It’s kind of surreal when people say that they know us because it was six years ago when we started our brand and that doesn’t seem that far away.” says Christine over a virtual meet hosted by Sephora Malaysia. The brand’s co-founders, Christine and Sarah Lee, who have now known each other for 15 plus years, met on Christine’s very first day of internship at L’Oréal Korea.
“We both had been in the beauty industry for over 10 years before we started Glow Recipe. At the time, we were taking trips back to Korea, working back and forth with Korean manufacturers and really realising that there was some incredible innovation there that deserved to be brought over to the United States in a compelling way, with a lot of education.” she says.
It was a time at which skincare was not really trending in America. Christine explains that most of the brands were a little bit more serious then; skincare wasn’t seen as a ritual or anything that was pampering and fun.
“At the time, the real goal was to be a point of difference in the industry by focusing on clean, indie, natural Korean brands because there was this whole market that was starting to come into focus in the US, where there were unique ingredients like snail mucin, donkey and horse milk and more coming into play. Eventually, this idea that we had grew into our own in-house brand, Glow Recipe, the fruit-filled line that you see today,” she shares.
In 2017, when the brand launched, The Watermelon Mask was an incredible hit and it sold out 8 times and had an 8,000-person waiting list and that really catapulted the brand into the trajectory of what it is today.
Fruit-powered skincare
“Our formulation philosophy is really about fruit antioxidants that we grew up using in our skincare routines and pairing that with gentle actives. The point here is gentle, yet powerful actives because in the beauty industry, we’ve kind of fallen into the cycle of chasing the highest concentration of acids, versus really thinking about gentle yet efficacious daily use.”
“Our pastel theme is really colours that speak to us about each fruit, the pink of the watermelon and the mint green of the avocado, and it’s really to give you the evocative sense of biting into fresh fruit.”
On the brand’s Take It Day By day, Skin By Skin campaign
“This is a campaign that really highlights different people from different walks of life and their skincare routines. The goal is to ensure that everyone feels seen, heard and really enjoy their unique journey in skincare. This means that as a brand, we’re not dictating you on your skincare steps. It’s really about you listening to your skin, choosing from your entire wardrobe of skincare and mix and match to become that chemist for your skin.”
An immersive skincare experience
“We really prioritise a sensorial experience. We believe that skincare should be the best part of your day where you unwind and enjoy that ritual. For us, fragrance is very much part of our sensorial experience. We are quite open with our fragrance philosophy. This means that whenever we do use a fragrance in a skincare product, we try to first of all, choose a 100% natural fragrance. And when that is not possible, we do use synthetic fragrance but it’s always used at a lower concentration and under 0.5 percent of the entire formulation. The Watermelon Mask has a synthetic fragrance.”
Products to try
“The Watermelon Niacinamide Dew Drops, RM160, is one of our new launches and I think that it’s incredibly well-suited for the Malaysian climate cos it gives you that kind of glowy, best-looking skin without containing mica or pearls, which are ingredients that are artificial. It also works as a primer.
“For anyone starting off at Glow, we recommend our core four – we call it our Glow Game Changers. The Pore-Tight Toner (RM160) the Pink Juice Moisturiser (RM180), the Watermelon Sleeping Mask (RM105) and the Avocado Eye Cream. With this, you kinda have a comprehensive routine. These are also our best-selling products.
Glow Recipe is available at Sephora Fahrenheit 88 and Sephora online.
