Tell us how anxiety about appearance inspired you to become a medical aesthetic doctor?
Growing up, I was never a good-looking person, and people around me seemed to comment on my appearance and figure with tough love. In addition, I have always hated my oily skin and the blackheads and acne that come with it. The comments made by others have deepened my dissatisfaction with myself, especially when I see that the classmates around me don’t seem to have these problems. Appearance anxiety has made me lack in self-confidence, and even now I still apologize constantly for the smallest things. As I grew up, I also discovered that many ladies around me also faced appearance anxiety and self-confidence issues. Although I am still trying to accept my imperfections, I decided to enter the medical aesthetics industry in the hope of helping others like me.
How does your background in aesthetic medicine affect your product development?
Bareness Skin is a skin care brand from a doctor's perspective. It is inspired by my research results in the field of medical beauty and the effective products I have used. I feel that although medical aesthetics is efficient and fast, not everyone has the spare cash to rely on medical aesthetics. That’s why I want to create a more affordable and sustainable skin care method so that everyone can get the same good skin quality as medical beauty treatments.
The skin beauty market is so saturated, why are you still determined to give it a try?
Although the market has become saturated, I am confident in developing my own market. I believe that every brand has a place in the market. As long as the product is reliable and easy to use, it will be discovered and trusted by consumers. I believe in using safe, reliable formulas to create skin care products that are suitable for everyone. However, my original intention in establishing the brand was not to pursue huge profits. It was more to focus on quality and effects, and to create two to three high-efficiency products that are suitable for daily use for different skin types.
How would you recommend consumers to use Bareness Skin skin care products?
It is recommended to adopt a step-by-step approach to allow the skin to slowly adapt to the new skin care products. This doesn’t just apply to high-performance skin care products – I would give the same advice to any new product. You can start with once a week and gradually increase to twice a week. Just like a fitness beginner who just goes to the gym, he cannot choose the hardest equipment right away. Another skin care tip is skin cycling - cycling through different types of skin care products throughout the week. For example, use skin peeling products on the first day, choose anti-aging products on the second day, and so on. Finally, give your skin a rest day—use only moisturizer without active ingredients to give your skin time to heal and repair.
Let’s talk about the preventive skin care advocated by the brand?
Preventive Skincare can help you face aging more calmly. We cannot reverse the aging process, but we can prepare in advance to grow old in a "graceful" way. For example, crow's feet and forehead wrinkles will gradually deepen with age, and once formed, they are difficult to eliminate. Medical aesthetic procedures can minimize wrinkles, but they cannot completely remove them.
What challenges did you encounter during the brand development process?
Challenges are everywhere, haha! Initially, the original plan was to get our products made in South Korea! I cooperated with the factory, but the raw materials they used were different from what I expected, so I decided to purchase the raw materials from the United States myself and introduce them to local factories for production. My partner is mainly responsible for business development and administrative work, so I handle packaging design, promotion and website creation. We both work very hard. We have to work until 4-5am every day before we can fall asleep, and then we have to start a new day around 8am. It is no exaggeration to say: when I got the first finished product, I really shed tears of excitement.
What is the product you are most proud of?
renew. Retinaldehyde Serum! The formula effectively increases the cell renewal rate and improves clogged hair follicles and mild acne. It can also improve skin texture and brighten skin tone while minimizing the occurrence of retinol dermatitis. Surveys show 92% of retinol users experience adverse reactions to it, but our carefully designed formula uses stable nanoliposomes to encapsulate retinaldehyde in a layer of fat for maximum absorption of the active ingredient , while reducing the side effects of retinol on the surface of the skin.
What’s the future for Bareness Skin?
I hope to use Bareness Skin to build an inclusive community of women. Maybe everyone is not a perfect individual, but it is enough that the women in this community can encourage, accept and help each other grow. I also hope that more people will understand and accept our products, and that they will be sold in offline physical stores and retailers in the near future.
Featured on Faces To Watch, NuYou Singapore May 2024