[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/media.allure.com\/photos\/69997b8fc9a66a2690e6afb8\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/GoodLight_Lede2.jpg”]<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1997, my sister, my mother, and I locked arms as we walked through Seoul\u2019s Dongdaemun market. We looked like any other Korean family\u2014except my sister and I gave it away with our American swagger in our Tommy Hilfiger zip-ups and Jansport backpacks, pinching our nostrils like clothespins. \u201cWhat\u2019s that smell?\u201d we whispered, trying not to laugh.<\/p>\n
I tugged my mother\u2019s sleeve. \u201cMoyah?\u201d The word for \u201cwhat\u2019s that\u201d slipped out in my American-accented Korean. It was my first trip to the motherland, and everything felt foreign and frenzied yet weirdly familiar. Even the specific Seoul smell felt like a memory I\u2019d inherited.<\/p>\n
\u201cShh \u2026 they\u2019ll know we\u2019re from America and think we\u2019re rich,\u201d my mom warned, scanning for bargains. We passed silk scarves, pastel hanboks, bubbling ddeokbokki<\/em>, then stopped at a stall overflowing with beauty products. Tiny tinctures, glass bottles, round jars from ISA KNOX, IOPE, Sulwhasoo. It felt like discovering a secret world. Skin care meant just for us.<\/p>\n Three decades later, that secret arrived on American shores like a tsunami\u2014sheet masks, snail mucin, toner pads, pimple patches lining every retail shelf. Korean culture wasn\u2019t just mine anymore. It belonged to the world. But these feel-good moments weren\u2019t enough. After years of fighting to keep it alive, my brand Good Light Cosmetics is sunsetting in April.<\/p>\n Like many founders before me, the decision was agonizing. What\u2019s ironic is that I started this business to promote Korean culture. But it was Korean culture\u2019s fierce competition\u2014and America\u2019s insatiable hyper-consuming beauty economy\u2014that pushed me to let it go.<\/p>\n My fascination with beauty started at home, watching my immigrant parents treat grooming like armor. My father\u2019s meticulous routine. My mother\u2019s intentional rituals. The potions and lotions lined up like tiny soldiers ready for war. In a cruel world that isn\u2019t always kind toward immigrants, those five minutes alone to breathe were self-preservation.<\/p>\n I studied journalism because I wanted people like my immigrant parents to be seen. Growing up watching Suchin Pak on MTV, I understood how powerful representation could be\u2014the shock of seeing someone who looked like me being loud and visible in a world that rarely made space for us. After college I moved to New York and worked for $12 an hour at an entertainment magazine that paid for my room and board. It felt glamorous and precarious all at once, but when I finally landed a full-time job, I made it my mission to tell stories editors thought wouldn\u2019t sell. Stories about Asian American actors, Korean pop culture (before K-pop was global), early celebrations of Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, editorial shoots where future cast of Crazy Rich Asians<\/em> met for the first time. I wanted to widen the frame so kids like me could see themselves inside it.<\/p>\n In 2014, everything shifted when I wrote a story about eleven transgender teens styled by Nicola Formichetti; it went viral, earned GLAAD and Webby nominations, and pushed me to start my own online magazine, Very Good Light<\/em>. We launched with stories on Sikh American men and the beauty of turbans, Arab American teens navigating an anti-Muslim administration, and nonbinary and trans people claiming space\u2014beauty as dignity, identity, survival. The publication was a love letter to my younger self, a kid desperate to be seen, and it eventually led to my first book deal for Pretty Boys<\/em>, a history of masculine-identifying people and their relationship to beauty and power.<\/p>\n In 2018, while living in Los Angeles, a man who I met at a meeting with a sunscreen brand reached out on LinkedIn. He was looking for his next venture and remembered how much I wanted to put my advocacy into a beauty brand. He wanted to get into business together and create a physical product. I agreed and the next few months saw us begging friends and family, taking meetings with venture capitalists, and scrounging enough to create three products.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Asking for help\u2014and more so, for money\u2014was and still is agonizing for me. The thought of leaning on loved ones and strangers to make my dream come alive was soul-crushing. Sometimes, meeting with investors was worse. Like the time I met with a venture capitalist who later told me they didn\u2019t care about the color of skin, only the color green; who said to me over Zoom, \u201con a cellular level we all want to be next to those who look like us.\u201d<\/p>\n I found others who were far more human. A French investor named Odile didn\u2019t hesitate for a second to write a check. My parents and sister and brother-in-law who put down cash not expecting return.<\/p>\n With so many people believing in me\u2014and my Very Good Light<\/em> readers cheering us on\u2014I introduced Good Light Cosmetics to the world in March 2021. I wanted to share Korean culture through my American lens: an outspoken kid from Colorado Springs who grew up between the streets of Seoul and suburban strip malls. I wanted to introduce Korean technology through my storytelling. I also wanted to be loud about things many Korean brands wouldn\u2019t touch\u2014queer inclusion, gender-inclusive beauty, advocacy for communities that get erased. If Korean brands couldn\u2019t say it because of politics or conservatism, I would bridge that gap.<\/p>\n When we debuted with those three products\u2014our cleanser, milky toner, and serum\u2014we were hailed as one of the hottest brands of the year. Retailers flooded our DMs. The brand was a manifestation of me: imperfect, hopeful, loud about what mattered. It seemed to resonate with consumers. I\u2019d be stopped on the streets of New York City by kind strangers who told me how much my brand meant to them. I can still recite their effusive words by heart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But these feel-good moments weren\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n We went live during COVID to a world that had shut down. It was also during the height of Stop Asian Hate, when I watched horrifying footage of people who looked as if they could be my uncles or aunties being attacked. Some were killed, but my activism didn\u2019t stop. I was just as outspoken about the violence as I\u2019d ever been. We launched a fictitious brand that went viral, called Biden Beauty. It was a beauty sponge that came in \u201cDemocratic blue.\u201d One-hundred percent of profits went to the DNC.<\/p>\n This didn\u2019t deter brands like Ulta from carrying us. They reached out weeks after our debut, asking if we had enough stock to fill an entire shelf. We didn\u2019t. But when we scrambled, we landed in 400 doors. That turned into 600, then 900, and then last year, full-chain distribution.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, competition was fiercer than before. While we were one of Ulta\u2019s only Korean beauty brands initially, everything changed two years ago with the explosion of the K-beauty movement. Suddenly, we were a commodity. We went from the top shelf to the third. Our messaging of \u201cBeauty beyond the binary\u201d seemed drowned out by viral K-beauty brands whose prices were impossible to beat.<\/p>\n While other brands had millions in marketing budgets, I had a few hundred dollars to play with, if that. After three years in business, we were still far from profitability. Worse\u2014I was now left with a shrinking bank account.<\/p>\n When my co-founder left in 2024, I decided to take the reins and prove I could make it profitable. More so, I had a responsibility to make it succeed. I carried so much shame about potentially failing my investors, my friends, my community and was desperate to save it. I worked harder than I ever did in my cumulative thirty-something years before.<\/p>\n I hired someone named Michi Lee, whom I met at a dinner and together we went on a journey. We rebuilt the business from the ground up: haggling for better cost of goods, negotiating better terms from retailers, adjusting prices. We shut off all advertising and paid promotions. It was about surviving the fire.<\/p>\n After two years, our business grew threefold. I was finally in the black for the first time. I did it. Our team and community did it. I accomplished everything I set out to do. The house was no longer in flames but it almost felt too late. By then, other Korean beauty brands were so far ahead of us, selling out on Ulta shelves, becoming overnight sensations, overshadowing us, we were left behind. By comparison, our brand felt forgotten.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In hindsight, I saw the future clearly. In my soul, I knew all this hard work would fall short. After all, this industry isn\u2019t merit-based. It would never be enough without significantly more capital. Tariffs were up 25%. Viral brands could introduce newness cheaper than my packaging cost. I realized I was competing in an industry that perhaps no longer cared for purpose, but rather, fixated on profits. I could push myself to triple the business again, I thought, but at what human toll?<\/p>\n Korean culture was finally everywhere, but the new brands arrived faster and cheaper than we could ever match. Without another funding round we couldn\u2019t keep up. That was when I realized this might be the beginning of the end. We were already in survival mode, and love alone couldn\u2019t outrun capital.<\/p>\n The cruel irony isn\u2019t lost on me. I love that Korean culture is finally popular. I love that K-beauty is getting the recognition it deserves. But behind the headlines celebrating the K-beauty boom are indie brands like mine struggling for space. It makes me wonder if people care about my mission anymore.<\/p>\n After almost a decade of work, Good Light Cosmetics will close this April.<\/p>\n There\u2019s grief in this decision. But instead of lingering in despair, I want this to be a celebration. For all of those who ever felt like a ghost, who felt overlooked, or insignificant, I hope you felt a piece of home in Good Light. I hope you know you still matter. Thank you for being on this journey with me.<\/p>\n These days I think a lot about that fearless ten-year-old boy in Dongdaemun, discovering a secret world of beauty. He brought what he loved and believed into the light. And now it\u2019s time to let it go.<\/p>\n Read more beauty stories:<\/strong><\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.allure.com\/story\/why-i-am-closing-good-light-my-k-beauty-brand”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/media.allure.com\/photos\/69997b8fc9a66a2690e6afb8\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/GoodLight_Lede2.jpg”] In the summer of 1997, my sister, my mother, and I locked arms as we walked through Seoul\u2019s Dongdaemun market. We looked like any other Korean family\u2014except my sister and I gave it away with our American swagger in our Tommy Hilfiger zip-ups and Jansport backpacks, pinching our nostrils like clothespins. \u201cWhat\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52,226],"class_list":["post-1789095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-allure-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1789095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1789095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1789095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1789095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n