Cover Liah Yoo, founder of KraveBeauty
Liah Yoo, founder of KraveBeauty
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The K-beauty brand made its debut in Singapore last month, marking its first brick-and-mortar presence
Have you ever felt lost and overwhelmed over something as simple as applying skincare? Rest assured that it’s completely normal to feel this way, especially when it seems like you’ve exhausted all means to achieve good skin. One person who can attest to this is Liah Yoo, the founder and creator of the K-beauty brand, KraveBeauty.
Like many, Yoo struggled to find skincare that worked for her acne woes despite trying various products. As Korean pop music began to take over the world back in 2012, Yoo decided to do a takeover of her own by launching her own YouTube channel. Here, she shared this journey by creating skincare review videos and shared skincare tips with her viewers in the hopes of empowering them with better skincare knowledge—some of which she had gained while working at Amore Pacific, which is South Korea’s largest beauty conglomerate.
Eventually, she grew her audience to reach over 1.5 million followers across her social media platforms while helping people reach their skincare goals. Not one to rest on her laurels, Yoo made the leap from content creator to beauty brand owner by launching KraveBeauty, known for its intentional and sustainable approach to skincare. KraveBeauty’s product range is split into two series: Core and Supplement, to help users simplify their skincare routines. Core products are targeted at daily maintenance while Supplement products can be regarded as “the reinforcements” you need whenever a specific skincare problem arises.
Read more: Heading to Seoul for a holiday... and an aesthetic treatment? Here’s how to care for your skin after
With sustainability in mind, the brand is committed to “slowing down skincare” by keeping to a small range of products to reduce carbon footprint. This includes taking eco-conscious steps such as thoughtful sourcing, waste-reducing packaging and efficient transportation.
Last month, KraveBeauty made its debut not just in Southeast Asia but also at a brick-and-mortar store for the very first time.
To tell us more about her entrepreneurial and skincare journey thus far, Tatler Singapore sat down to chat with Yoo, who was in town last month to celebrate her brand launch in Singapore. She shares more about her everyday skincare routine, her savvy business techniques and how the brand is practising sustainability.
Above The KraveBeauty collection is split into two series: Core and Supplement
The KraveBeauty collection is split into two series: Core and Supplement
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What is your everyday skincare routine right now?
Liah Yoo (LY): In the morning, I only wash my face with water. I don’t use a cleanser. If you have eczema-prone skin or a compromised skin barrier or even people who want to protect their skin barrier, [just skip using a cleanser all together]. Then, apply moisturiser or a serum and use an SPF right away. Sometimes, when it’s humid just like in Singapore, I only use a serum and then sunscreen. So it’ll be just like a two-step routine, with fewer layers. In the nighttime, I use make-up remover [as part of my routine].
I use our products, namely the Heartleaf Hydrating Cleanser, Oil La La Linoleic Acid-Rich Oil Serum and the Oat So Simple Water Cream or any other moisturiser.
How long have you been doing this routine?
LY: I’ve been doing this for the past seven years now—these three or four steps. It’s worked so well that I feel like the best skincare product or the best skincare ingredient is your own. I think the more you get excited about skincare, the more you want to try things and the more it can sensitise your skin, especially if you already have sensitive skin. My strategy is to lessen the impact.
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Above Liah Yoo started her career at a South Korean beauty conglomerate and later started producing her own skincare videos on YouTube, which then led to her starting her own K-beauty brand
Liah Yoo started her career at a South Korean beauty conglomerate and later started producing her own skincare videos on YouTube, which then led to her starting her own K-beauty brand
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What is your opinion on the seven- to ten-step routine popularised in K-beauty?
LY: I’m happy if that routine works for someone. But my opinion is, if you have very sensitive skin, you’re putting too many products and increasing the possibility of irritating your skin even further. I say this because I had acne-prone skin and the more products I applied, the more pimples I would get; the more aggravated my skin would be. I would advise people with sensitive skin or eczema to apply fewer products—to keep their routine simple.
Did keeping your routine simple help your skin clear up?
LY: Yes. By simplifying my skincare routine [and applying] lightweight oils like rosehip seed oil, grape seed oil and hemp seed oil. They work well with the skin and rebuild the skin barrier. I used to have acne-prone skin, but now I think my skin is more stable.
Tell us more about how you were inspired to start KraveBeauty.
LY: Never in my life plan had I planned for a beauty brand at all, but I think just by [being on] YouTube, you get to interact with people who are like-minded and who come to you with a common problem. For me, that was people with acne-prone skin who literally tried even Accutane, a form of oral retinoid medication that treats severe acne, and didn’t see any improvements. These are the people who felt almost neglected by the beauty industry. Just by simplifying their routine and also applying linoleic acid-rich oils, they have seen such significant before and after.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt that there wasn’t a gentler brand that was catered towards these skin types. Because if you have acne, the first instinct is to turn to benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid. Our products don’t have those ingredients; they’re active [ingredients]. [We want to help] rebuild your skin’s natural ecosystem so that it prevents breakout in the first place and that’s why I’m so obsessed with oils and ceramides and all that.
I wanted KraveBeauty to also empower people to listen to their cravings, not the Sephora sales staff, not the TikTok crew or the YouTuber that you’re watching because it’s so easy to fall into the trap of a skincare trend. Especially if you have sensitive skin—the more you try different things, the more you know a disaster will happen. So that was an entire inspiration behind the brand.
Read more: The Best K-Beauty Tips by Glow Recipe’s Sarah Lee and Christine Chang
So was that how you came up with the name KraveBeauty?
LY: Just think about what your skin is craving. If you’re craving something like a certain food, you know how to listen to your body. There’s a lot of ingredient education like niacinamide and vitamin C and what these do for your skin, but there’s no education about how your skin can naturally work.
For example, I previously didn’t know that hyaluronic acid is already present in our skin. Your body, your skin, already produces vitamin A, which is like retinol. So the more you understand how your skin works, you can easily supplement what you’re lacking or what your skin is craving. That’s the entire concept that I want to focus on, to really help people to believe in their skin first and then add products when they need them and only when they need them.
How did you get started on YouTube?
LY: People were becoming obsessed with K-pop internationally around 2012. This was when Big Bang and Girls’ Generation [were dominant in the K-pop scene]. It was the first wave of K-pop influence and people were really infatuated with how their skin looked and their makeup as well. So I started reviewing Korean beauty products and K-pop make-up.
But then it really took off when I started talking about acne and sharing my journey with acne skin care and that helped me grow my YouTube channel.
Did working at Amore Pacific help in any way to inspire you to create your own brand?
LY: No. I did learn a lot and I do remember very fondly the experience that I had at a big conglomerate company. There are friends and past colleagues whom I still keep in touch with. But my time there didn’t encourage me to start my brand. It did serve as an inspiration point on what not to do, especially during the product development process. I remember it was always about meeting sales goals, and not so much about solving customers’ problems. It was normal to launch brands with investors and shareholders.
That’s something that I wanted to change because that’s why [as someone with acne] I used to feel neglected. There are so many products out there that are not for everyone yet you see an overwhelming amount of products in the market. I’m sure those products started from board meeting conversations, not the customers. But it should be the other way around. With KraveBeauty, I want to flip the script and that’s why it was important for us to not have any investors.
The brand first launched in South Korea and the US at the same time. Why did you decide to bring KraveBeauty to this part of Asia now?
LY: We had so much demand, mostly from Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. These three countries have been consistently part of the top five most followed countries for our social platforms. We did have a meaningful amount of traffic coming from this part of Asia.
But they didn’t always [complete their online purchases] because of the shipping fee or other reasons. [We realised] people have gone out of their way to ask their friends who were travelling and visiting America to help purchase products by KraveBeauty.
I know a lot of people here have tried the brand too. I think that was enough of a signal for us to come here. Sephora is a great partner to work with because they are great at protecting a brand’s image.
What would you say was the most challenging part of your business journey?
LY: The most challenging part of the journey is understanding the different regulations for each country. Additionally, sometimes there are a lot of distractions because there are so many new products out there. People’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter because of TikTok. They want new products every day. Just trying to fight that conversation and fight the trend of [launching new products quickly] while still keeping the brand relevant and refreshed all the time is challenging.
Haley Bieber is a fan of your SPF. How do you feel about that?
LY: It’s really rewarding. In some ways, never have I ever thought about an A-list celebrity would be following my brand. I think our team was hoping that Justin Bieber was also using the product!
It was definitely almost like a stamp of approval moment for us. That then inspired other celebrities to try our products too.
Do you know of any other celebrities who have used your products too?
LY: Bowen Yang [of US TV show Saturday Night Live]. He’s so cute. He’s a huge fan of the brand and he came to our pop-up as well. He’s hilarious!
Your concern is to not over-stimulate your customers. Is there a maximum number of products that you will release?
LY: To be honest, I don’t see ourselves having [for instance] 30 to 40 different products. Another goal of ours is replacing existing demands with more sustainable ones. We are investing a lot in not only sustainable packaging but also sustainably sourced raw materials. We want to make our entire raw materials extraction and sourcing process a lot greener and more ethical too—especially with the people who are behind-the-scenes. I think there are a lot of gaps because our industry still relies on petrochemicals.
Tell us more about the Waste Me Not campaign.
LY: Waste Me Not was an initiative that was basically solving the problem of the waste that we created. During Covid, supplies were stuck at the port in terms of shipment. We manufacture most of our products in Korea and ship them over to the US. Because of the global supply chain crisis, and because all the factories stopped running or were running in a very limited capacity, we could not ship our stuff into the US.
We had placed a year’s worth of a product order for our Matcha cleanser. But that production batch went completely wrong. It was supposed to have a very jelly-like consistency, but it turned out to be a lot more watery instead. Because of this, I had to go to Korea during Covid. We couldn’t quite honestly sell this as a hydrating face cleanser, so we reworked the formula into a limited-edition body wash because it still cleanses.
The limited-edition body wash had the same ingredients and we sold it at cost while telling the story of ‘Hey, we kind of like screwed up.’ It would otherwise have gone to waste if we didn’t package and sell it as a body wash. This [method] actually took off and went viral.
Because we’re investor-free, we were able to open a whole pop-up about [our products that we did not let go to waste]. We eventually won a lot of sustainability design awards for these specific campaigns in the US.
I think that was a very meaningful move for us to not only problem solve quickly but also have an awesome moment to realise that customers do support your messaging if you’re transparent about it. They don’t see it as a mistake. They see it as an opportunity to be involved with the brand and support the brand. That’s something I am really proud of.
On your whole concept of slowing down skincare. Can you tell us more about that?
LY: It is our commitment to slowing down this fast fashion-like beauty industry because there’s simply too much. I get that with make-up, you need multiple shades for products like foundation. But with skincare, I don’t see the reason why our shelves need to be [full]. Sometimes, the industry confuses [customers] with too many categories.
Many beauty brands think they need to grow by launching more products. The entire product development process always starts with trying to achieve sales goals and introducing new products that do not necessarily benefit customers. We stopped launching new products from 2020 to 2022. [This was our way of showing] that we could grow without expanding our product line. Thankfully, we were able to grow in that during that period meaningfully.
We created our case study to showcase to other brands in the industry that they don’t feel too pressured to launch [new products all the time]. Hopefully that inspires more people and more beauty brands to slow down in terms of the product launch cycle. That’s definitely the backbone of how we operate.
Andrea Saadan is the Senior Digital Editor of Tatler Singapore. She oversees all digital content for the website and currently leads the Beauty and Lifestyle verticals. As a child, she had always enjoyed reading and writing but it was only after she joined her college newspaper, The Spectrum, in Buffalo, New York, that she considered a career in journalism. Her love for all things beauty started from the age of two—when she was caught playing with (and damaging) her mother’s YSL lipstick. On top of her day job, she is also an unpaid beauty consultant for friends and family. Besides make-up, her obsessions include the wizarding world of Harry Potter, podcasts, ice-cream, her walking pad and watching endless re-runs of The Office (US).
