Beauty launches are in no short supply, but every so often, one strikes a chord. Such is the case with Glow Recipe and its Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask. Since launch, it’s sold out multiple times, and often has a waitlist in the thousands. It’s a fluffy, sweet, millennial pink wonder product, but it also delivers bouncy skin in spades thanks to an innovative formula and super-charged ingredients listing. Great on Instagram, but even greater on your skin.

K-Beauty inspired Glow Recipe is the work of industry veterans Christine Chang and Sarah Lee who (thankfully) left corporate beauty and went out on their own. While the success of their Sleeping Mask has been palpable, the brand certainly isn’t a one hit wonder. Almost every launch boasts a stack of rave reviews, including the latest: The Watermelon Glow Ultra-Fine Mist. Impossibly light and fresh, it’s a veil of moisture and dewiness all in one summer-scented atomiser. Conveniently, the product launch ties in nicely with Glow Recipe arriving at Mecca Cosmetica – great news for us here in Australia. We were lucky enough to chat with Chang and Lee about their brand, their highly coveted skincare advice, the one K-Beauty trend we can expect to see more of, and exactly how they’re making audible noise in what’s a pretty loud industry. Keep reading for the interview.

Credit: Glow Recipe

Grazia: What did your career look like until you launched Glow recipe?

Christine Chang: Sarah and I have been in the beauty industry for over 15 years. We met working at L’Oreal Korea, and have been friends ever since. We moved to New York at the same time (not intentional), and were both at L’Oreal US when we saw a movement within the industry where so many global beauty companies were looking to Korea for the latest skincare innovations. This was the starting point for us when it came to launching Glow Recipe, and even now we’re constantly blown away by the level of creativity and innovation that comes out of the K-Beauty space. For us, it was natural to share our Korean heritage through Glow Recipe and harness the different technologies and ingredients for our in-house line.

Grazia: Glow Recipe launches continuously go viral – what’s the secret sauce?

Chang: When we launched our Watermelon Sleeping Mask, we were so shocked and humbled by the support. It sold out multiple times and had a wait list thousands long – it was beyond our wildest dreams. Our mission at Glow Recipe has always been to make skincare effective, easy and fun. We were passionate about pairing fruits with effective ingredients and sensorial textures, and at launch, the reactions from everyone truly validated our purpose and formulation philosophy. With every launch, we want to continue to provide exciting, game-changing products for our beauty community.

Grazia: Where do you go to find inspiration when it comes to dreaming up new launches?

Sarah Lee: We travel to Korea on average six to seven times per year to keep our finger on the pulse of the market. Having worked there, we have an extensive network of beauty industry insiders, influencers, dermatologists and beauty editors on the ground that share the latest trends with us.  It’s always been important to us to harness the power of natural ingredients – fruits like watermelon and avocado are both fascinating and familiar, but great for skin. We also focus on the sensorial experience from fun textures to tactile packaging. All of these elements contribute to the experience.

Grazia: What does your own skincare routine look like?

Lee: I love using the Glow Recipe Blueberry Bounce Gentle Cleanser to remove makeup and gently exfoliate. I tone my skin by using the Watermelon Glow Ultra-Fine Mist as it really preps my skin for the products that come afterward. I swear by the Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask day and night too. During the day I love to use it as a wash-off mask because it makes my skin a clear, smooth canvas perfect for makeup application. When I use it as an overnight mask, I wake up to baby-soft, glowing skin – it’s unreal! As the seasons change, it’s incredibly important that your skincare does too. In the winter, I transition to the Avocado Melt Sleeping Mask because it’s extremely hydrating yet lightweight.

Grazia: What’s the craziest place you’ve ever done a sheet mask?

Chang: We’ve always been big proponents of sheet masking everywhere, whether in the back of a car, in-flight, or even during meetings at the office. So many people sent us the photo of Katy Perry sheet masking in public, which we absolutely loved. We’ve always had a fun, approach to skincare and we want to create a movement of sheet-masking in public without shame. We want to break boundaries starting with our #maskeverywhere campaign, where any onlookers seeing you mask in public in a sheet mask might actually feel a little jealous.

What skincare trends can expect to see in the next few years?

Lee: We’re in love with the K-beauty fog mist trend, or 안개 (ahn-gae) mists. In Korean, ‘fog’ is called ‘ahn gae’, which also has a dual meaning of baby’s breath flowers. Fog mists disperse so finely that you feel like you’re walking into a fog of hydration. We will be launching one in Mecca soon! We love the trend towards soothing and gentle active ingredients too, such as PHA and encapsulated retinol. PHA is a gentler, larger molecule compared to AHA, while encapsulated retinol is a potent and gentle alternative to traditional, free-form retinol.

Any skin tricks you can share?

Chang: The main Korean skincare hack is to pat your skincare in to aid absorption. It goes back to the philosophy of Korean women being as gentle as possible. Tugging and pulling can contribute to wrinkles, so we always advocate patting. To take the patting philosophy to the next level, we created a video that ended up going viral. It explained the ‘seven skin method’ where you pat in a toner or mist seven times in a row. It may sound excessive but your skin drinks up all the moisture.

Another trick is to ditch the towel after cleansing. The rubbing can cause friction on your skin. It’s also impossibly hard to keep your towel clean in the bathroom, so instead just pat the moisture in after cleansing! It’s super easy and skin is plumped and slightly damp to adsorb the next steps of your skincare.

What else is in the pipeline for Glow Recipe?

Lee: We have some amazing launches coming down the line this year that we are truly excited about. Currently, we’re focused on expanding within skincare. There are a lot of new innovations that we’re excited to introduce into the category as well as skincare-makeup hybrids. We can’t wait!

Shop Glow Recipe Favourites Here

Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Ultra-Fine Mist, $43. SHOP NOW

Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask, $69. SHOP NOW 

Glow Recipe Watermelon Glow Pink Juice Moisturiser, $60. SHOP NOW