Ever tried the now iconic 10-step Korean skincare routine for ‘glass skin’? You have Korean-American entrepreneur Charlotte Cho to thank for (accidentally) popularising it.
The co-founder of leading online Korean retailer Soko Glam and the skincare brand Then I Met You, has helped pioneer awareness about K-Beauty worldwide, after first discovering Korean Beauty rituals while living there in her mid-twenties. Indeed, her influence has not only popularised individual products, but broader skincare philosophies, such as double cleansing and skincare layering on a global scale.
To celebrate her skincare line now being available in Space NK (where you’ll want to try everything), we sat down with Cho to discover how she gets it all done. Including staying true to herself in the competitive beauty industry and the rather unique challenges of balancing business when working alongside her husband as a leading beauty entrepreneur…
On discovering Korean beauty
Cho was born into a Korean-American household in California, but it wasn’t until after college that she became deeply immersed in Korean beauty. The catalyst? She moved to South Korea for five years.
“Before I travelled there, I never even had any skincare routine – I literally slept in my makeup,” Cho reveals. “But, while there, I discovered Korean beauty practices, like double cleansing and multi-step routines, and there’s certainly a big difference between Korean and Western skincare practices. Korean beauty is all about finding the root of the condition. If you have a blemish, you don’t just cover it up with makeup; you focus on taking care of your skin. Korean women and men get taught about skincare at such a young age, they see it as basic hygiene, so people in Korea probably thought I was a bit disgusting. They were like ‘you don’t double cleanse? You don’t put on sunscreen?!’ It was so bizarre to them. I basically got taught everything by the locals.”
On her first Korean beauty business
Inspired by her experiences in Korea (and spotting a gap in the market), Cho co-founded Soko Glam – an online platform that brought K-Beauty products to the US market – with her husband in 2012. With her talent for spotting a great product and her esthetician background, word quickly spread about the site’s personalised skincare solutions and routines.
“I basically took what I had learned and I brought it to Soko Glam,” Cho explains. “Now, we have been around for 12 years and we have 100 Korean brands on offer. I still test new products from Korea all the time, looking for new concepts, new application methods and new ingredients. One of my current favourite brands is Neogen, which has an innovative range of toners and cleansers, and the really fun BioDance sheet mask – which goes from white to clear as it absorbs into your skin.”
On launching Then I Met You
In 2018, six years after launching Soko Glam, Cho was flexing her entrepreneurial muscles again. Cho’s next step was the launch of her own luxury skincare line – Then I Met You.
“I have an extreme amount of respect for Korean beauty innovation and I also have my Western esthetician background, so wanted to harmonise those two parts of me into Then I Met You. I would describe it as a sensorial Korean skincare line that focuses on uniting Korean gentle ingredients with the potent actives that you see in Western skincare culture. Funnily enough, we didn’t actually put it on the Soko Glam site for a whole year – despite everyone saying I was crazy as hundreds of 1000s of people go there to discover skincare. Instead, I wanted the line to stand on its own two feet – to have its own story and be its own brand before we listed it. Now it is the top brand on the site. I love the fact that it’s skincare with a kick.”
On staying authentic to her roots
In a competitive beauty market, it can be tempting (and unfortunately common) for brand founders to simplify their identity to make it more ‘globally palatable’ as they grow – but as Then I Met You moves towards its 6th birthday, there’s a reason Cho has always actively resisted this … however hard it might be.
“As a strong advocate for Korean beauty, I’ve always wanted to stay true to the concepts behind it,” affirms Cho. “So with Then I Met You, we started with just two products – the cleansing balm and the soothing tea cleansing gel. People asked us, ‘why are you launching two cleansers, not a cleanser and moisturiser’, as is traditional in the Western market. But, I wanted to tell the story about how double cleansing changed my skin. Others said that I shouldn’t lean too heavily into the Korean side of my story if I wanted to be a global brand. But, I think there’s something to be said about authenticity and not just trying to chase after the next trend. If you just do what everyone else is doing, you only become part of the noise. You have to have your own story and your own journey.”
On the influence of her own skin needs on TIMU
Then I Met You doesn’t just combine the benefits of both Western and Korean culture – it fills the gap that Cho herself struggled with when shopping for skincare: a desire to see visible results while still promising a sensorial, enjoyable experience.
“I’m almost 40 and I have two kids,” Cho tell us, “so I need something that focuses on more than just deep hydration: I need things that contain potent actives. So, while I love Korean hydrating essences with their fermented ingredients, I wanted our Giving Essence to have 5% niacinamide too, so it could contribute to a stronger skin barrier and calm inflammation. I also don’t believe in a world where you just fight acne with strong ingredients that strip your skin of its natural oils – you need to have a balance for healing. That’s why our Refining Toner combines the exfoliating benefits of Western acid treatments with the hydrating power of a milky Korean toner (its 86% birch juice).”
And, of course, we can’t forget the brand’s multi-award winning Cleansing Balm, which Cho describes as the perfect fusion of Korean and Western beauty: “Balms are a classic part of the double cleansing routine in Korea. But, this one transforms into an oily facial cleanser that helps melt away makeup, suncream and excess sebum, with seaberry oils acting as a great protective antioxidant.”
On (accidentally) popularising 10-step routines
What Cho is perhaps best known for is the advocation of the so-called 10-step Korean skincare routine that sees multiple lightweight products layered one after another for the ultimate glossy ‘glass skin’ finish. It’s certainly a classic K-Beauty technique, but there’s something unusual about her claim to fame – Cho didn’t really mean to popularise it.
“I was speaking about the 10-step concept in an interview seven years ago, and the publication kind of ran with the idea that I meant ‘you must use 10 products every day’,” reveals Cho. “What it actually means is picking and choosing from a possible 10 steps and figuring out what your perfect multi-step routine is, according to your needs. I certainly don’t have a 10 step routine myself! At most, I normally have about five or six steps; the double cleanse, a toner, essence and moisturiser. In the daytime, I use sunscreen too, and, on the weekends, I occasionally do an exfoliating mask.”
On the increasing global nature of beauty
The beauty industry has certainly changed a lot since Cho and her entrepreneurial spirit first arrived on the scene, but the cultural interconnectedness that powers her brands is only becoming more apparent (and important).
“I think that the beauty industry has become a lot more globalised,” explains Cho. “When I went to Southeast Asia to launch Then I Met You in Sephora Asia, I asked every influencer and consumer, who do you follow in beauty? They spoke about people from the US, the UK, from all over the place, not just from Southeast Asia. Even with beauty trends, it’s very globalised. Often, we’re all talking about the same things nowadays. That makes me sad in a way as there’s no real differences to celebrate, but there’s also an opportunity there. When Sephora Asia reached out to us, I was initially very puzzled as to why, as they have so much access to great Korean beauty in Asia already. But it made me realise there’s a demand for a type of elevated skincare that has that global perspective.”
On the influence of social media
Part of that global perspective is, of course, aided by social media. Yet, there’s been a key shift even there. In the past, it was new launches that were needed to trigger sell-out excitement. In today’s social-led world though, what is newly discovered (and shared with followers online) could be a forgotten hero or a classic skincare technique revitalised by a fresh perspective.
“It’s so interesting to see the influence of social media on the popularity of skincare concepts, including Korean beauty,” Cho reveals. “For example, TikTok just blew up Korean beauty again, but it’s not necessarily about new concepts anymore. They’re just reimagined from previous things that the younger generation are discovering for the first time. For example, there’s been renewed education around double cleansing and even a new interpretation of sheet masks. They were huge seven years ago, but now they have evolved into toner pads, which are more ‘customisable’. It’s pretty incredible to see Korean beauty being reimagined, while still saying true to its fundamental concepts.”
On her current favourite Korean skincare trend
Korean beauty is still driving innovation though – and the latest trend that Cho spotted on her most recent visit to Asia was all about stopping overconsumption; a concept that the entrepreneur feels especially passionate about.
“During Covid, we were all buying lots of stuff that we didn’t need and it was very much aligned to the American expression, YOLO (You Only Live Once). But there’s now a trend in Korea dubbed YONO (You Only Need One). I love a philosophy that pushes back against overconsumption. I’m the sort of person who will cut into my sunscreen and dig to the end to use every last drop. I was so thrilled when somebody told me recently that the Cleansing Balm is one of the few products that they hit the pan with. I know we live in an age where everyone wants to try new things, but I want Then I Met You to be that tried-and-true brand that people revert back to it all the time, even if they try other products along the way.”
On the importance of the in-store experience
Cho is celebrating another quiet revolution too. For many years now, online shopping has taken centre-stage for beauty and fashion, but there’s finally renewed demand for in-store experience, which allow customers to get hands on with the products before they buy them.
“I think that having a presence in a store that’s thoughtfully curated is exactly where we need to be,” reveals Cho. “Our products are sensorial in nature – so you want to try them – and they are not always simple to use, so you want there to be expert advisors on hand to explain how they can be best enjoyed. We’ve been online at Cult Beauty for some time now, but it is exciting to be stocked physically in Space NK too to meet the demand.”
On balancing a business and a family
Of course, Cho is not just a beauty entrepreneur – she’s also devoted family member, which, as many Citizen Enfants readers will know, can take a fair amount of teamwork and juggling. Here’s how she get’s it done:
“My husband is the CEO of Soko Glam, so Dave and I not only work together – we have a family together. That can be difficult to balance, but it works because we love it. Bringing kids into the picture can be very highly complicated, but it also grounded me, because I think without them, I would end up working until 10pm. Now it’s a 5pm cut off and I jump into mom mode. My husband and I are very focussed at work, but we’re also right there at home, so we like to think that we haven’t compromised. Whenever we have dinner meetings, for example, we schedule them for after eight, because we don’t want to miss bedtime. I also only very occcasionally go abroad for work; I’m not going to be going to LA every weekend just for a quick meeting. Honestly, both Dave and I feel like we caught lightning in a bottle multiple times – with the two businesses and our family – and we are so invested in making sure it’s all a success.”
We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.
Lead image credit: Charlotte Cho for Then I Met You
Any Questions or Tips to add?