It all started with a watermelon: Glow Recipe founders dish on fan-favourite skin care line

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We know the benefits of fruit for our diets — fibre and antioxidants, to name a few — but what about for our faces?

Co-founders Sarah Lee and Christine Chang set out to push the boundaries of what fruit-derived ingredients could do for skin with their brand Glow Recipe. Focusing on ingredients such as watermelon, blackberry and plum in their formulations, the brand’s colourfully packaged products have become fast-favourites with many beauty fans.

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We caught up with the duo to learn more:

Q: For those who aren’t familiar, what is Glow Recipe? 

Sarah Lee: We launched our namesake brand Glow Recipe in 2017 as part of our mission to provide clean, cruelty-free, fruit forward, clinically effective skin care for glowing skin. Anchored in Korean skin-care philosophies, this sensorial skin-care line develops innovative formulas that pair antioxidant-rich fruit with gentle yet powerful actives for real results.

Our first product was created by harnessing the power of watermelon. Growing up, our grandmothers rubbed watermelon rinds on our heat rashes during hot summer months and we experienced firsthand the miraculous healing power of watermelon and how soothing and hydrating it was for the skin. This was the inspiration for our OG product for Glow Recipe, the Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask. Since its launch, we sold out over eight times and had wait lists in the thousands. We never expected that the product would be so well-received, it was amazing.

Q: What makes it unique? 

Christine Chang: Glow Recipe bridged the gap between clinically effective and efficacious skin care, with sensoriality, trend-setting branding and education. Skin care was viewed as a chore before makeup, however, we were able to drive the conversation around skin care being not only self-care, but a collection of products our community wants to keep on their shelves and share online on their social platforms.

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Q: Who is the target customer?

Chang: Since our inception, we’ve always strived to take an inclusive approach to skin care. For starters, we don’t retouch the images you see in our ads and on social media, we aim for minimal makeup (if any), and we’re always committed to showing real skin, with bumps, texture, and all — because that’s what’s realistic for our customers. Everyone can and should have healthy, hydrated and bouncy skin that isn’t upheld to impossible standards.

To that end, we’re officially banning the following words for our brand vocabulary: Perfect Skin, Flawless, Poreless, Ageless, Anti-Wrinkle and Anti-Aging. No amount of skin-care products could make any of the above words a reality for most people — perfect skin just doesn’t exist.

Q: Is there a ‘hero’ product in the collection? 

Lee: Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dew Drops and Watermelon Glow PHA+BHA Pore-Tight Toner are our top two selling SKUs globally — one of each is sold every 12 seconds. Our community loves this duo not only for the immediate, real glass skin results they give, but because they work hard and well overtime too.

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Q: What’s new for the brand?

Chang: We’re so excited to introduce Glow Recipe’s very first retinol serum and create a formula that our community will look forward to using every night. Glow Recipe skin care is anchored in Korean skin-care philosophies which include sensorial textures and experiences that ultimately promote regular use within your skin-care routine for long-term results. We’ve heard feedback from our community that retinol treatments have not always been enjoyable to use and we wanted to rethink the experience by creating a lightweight, milky gel texture that is infused with a small amount of 100 per cent naturally derived, essential-oil free fragrance.

Lee: We knew it was so important for a gentle retinol product like Blackberry Retinol Blemish Serum to have the same sensorial experience as our other Glow Recipe products. Consistency is key when introducing an active like retinol in your routine, and Blackberry Retinol Blemish Serum contains a powerful yet gentle triple retinoid blend — with retinal, retinol and retinyl ester — at 0.16 per cent, balanced with antioxidant-rich Blackberry extract and skin nurturing ingredients like eight per cent glycerin, ectoin and squalane. It was important to us to create a gentle, hydrating formula that was comforting and easy to use in addition to driving results over time.

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Q: And where can people learn more? 

A: Glow Recipe is available nationwide at Sephora and online at Sephora.ca. 

[email protected]

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