Global vision: Singapore’s Skinlycious launches in US as it seeks to become ‘top’ acne care brand

Skinlycious was found in 2013 by Jasmine Kang, who has a background in biomedical science. Kang founded the brand after struggling with cystic acne for over a decade without finding an effective solution.

The brand endeavours to create a comprehensive beauty routine for acne sufferers. This means not just offering acne treatments but products that take care of other common skin care issues.

For instance, for adult acne sufferers, the brand has products that clear acne while taking care of other mature skin concerns such as increased roughness, pigmentation, as well as loss of collagen and firmness. 

Recently, the company made its international debut with the launch of its US website, marking the first step in taking the brand global.

This comes a year after Skinlycious was selected to be a part of the Sephora Accelerate programme, the only Singaporean brand among 13 finalists.

This partially spurred Kang’s interest in expanding into the US, which she sees as a gateway to become the “number one acne brand”.​

“I would like to partner with a retailer with an international base – just like Sephora. My vision is to be a number one brand and to do that I need to partner with somebody that has an international presence. They can help us go worldwide because if I have to do it myself, it’s very slow,”​ she said.

Kang speaks from experience, as this launch was delayed for almost a year because of regulation changes in the US that stalled the company.

While Skinlycious is very new in the US market, Kang has been encouraged by the sales it is seeing.

The brand’s priority now is to achieve its first million in the US so it can begin “knocking on Sephora’s doors”.​

“I'm grateful to have learned quite a lot of things during the Sephora accelerate programme. But now, I need to prove myself; show some numbers first and get enough traction,” ​said Kang.

Alongside the US launch, the company has also launched in China via Alibaba-owned Tmall.

However, the company will be focusing more effort and resources on the US market for now as Kang is personally more familiar with it.

“It’s easier language-wise because everything is in English and also, I’m more familiar with the digital marketing side of things here.”​

On the digital marketing side of things, Kang is also aiming to amass more visual testimonies on the efficacy of her products, something she had not been able to do as well in her home market.

“I want to work with influencers who suffer from acne, I think in the US, they are less afraid to share that they have acne compared to Singapore. Hopefully, we can help them clear their acne and their follower can share that journey with us.”​

Being able to show proof that her products work on acne is integral to the brand growth and reach more people who suffer from acne.

“You actually need proof from other people that this works and right now, there’s only Jasmine. This is about the whole acne community and I want to be able to reach more acne fighters out there. Having the testimonials of other people can help me convince the sceptics,” ​said Jasmine.