I feel like we're making flubber.
Did you watch that movie?
No.
Hey guys, it's Mi-Anne.
And I am in South Korea.
I am here in the outskirts of Seoul at the Glow recipe factory where I'm going to meet
co-founder Sarah Lee and she's gonna teach me how to make their popular Watermelon Sleeping Glow Mask.
This is Sarah Lee, my guide for the day.
She met her co-founder Christine Chang while they were both working at L'Oreal in South Korea.
Years later they moved to the states and had the idea for the first iteration of Glow Recipe,
an online shop where U.S. consumers can get the best K-beauty products.
Three years into the business, the brand launched its own line of products and now it's one
of the most popular lines at Sephora.
I am here at the factories.
Let's go!
Hi guys.
I'm Sarah and I'm so excited, Mi-Anne, that you're here all the way in Korea with me at
the factory of our O.G.
Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask.
Step one.
Cutting and seeding the watermelons.
The cutting process was not as easy as it would seem.
Sarah and I struggled a lot.
Let me try it.
Mi-Anne, you are better than me at this.
Good job.
We suck at this.
We really suck.
Look at this.
That's good!
Yeah!
So the next step is using your chopsticks right there.
You can use them to pick these seeds out, so that when these go into the next step
which is preservation,
it's a pristine state.
How are you doing over there?
Oh it's coming!
Mmmmm
That is good!
So good.
This is a tedious process.
I know.
You are a pro.
So we've done all the chopping.
And the next step is to actually go to this special room where this is all preserved for
over a month.
Step two: preserving the watermelon pieces.
Woah!
I'm really excited about this huge bag filled with watermelon pieces floating in
this secret liquid.
Removing bacteria, keeping the formulation pristine, but also stable, and then ready
for it to be mixed with other ingredients.
Every day, the team actually stirs this to make sure that there's even distribution of
the liquid and all the water around that's on the top layer are actually going back down,
vice versa.
So you're just taking what's in the bottom, placing that on top.
And this is done every single day.
Every single day.
For at least a month.
And you know from the color when it's a little opaque that it's ready for it to be formulated.
Want to try it?
Yes.
I feel like I'm like fishing.
Woah, got too much!
It's so much heavier than I anticipated.
That makes sense because it's like so dense and full of water.
Once this is all done and the preservation is complete, it's ready to be mixed with other
ingredients for that perfect blend.
So let's go to our labs to start mixing.
30 days later, after the preservation process is complete, it's time to mix the actual formula.
We have this beautiful base right here.
It smells really good.
Watermelon as you know is amazing for soothing and hydrating your skin, so we added additional
ingredients to get that extra moisture, exfoliation, and all these beautiful skincare benefits.
The first one is Hyaluronic acid.
We all know that this is super hydrating for the skin. I'm sure you love this ingredient.
So good.
Can I pour it in?
Yeah.
Okay, next is glycerin.
It helps to increase the skin's moisture retention.
10mL.
Another really important ingredient is AHA.
AHA helps to exfoliate and also hydrate at the same time.
Add a couple of drops.
This is actually a really special ingredient.
It's a seaweed extract.
It's really, really packed with nutrients.
It's amazing for nourishing the skin but also adding extra moisture.
Love that.
You can see that the texture is very viscous and has that elasticity.
It's a really cool innovative blend because typically exfoliation and hydration weren't
really living together in one blend.
So we were able to just add the perfect percentage of each ingredient for that.
Cool, so this is the mask.
Unmixed. Woah, you can see where all the viscous fluid... like it's really heavy.
So it went right through the watermelon.
Do you want to give it a nice stir?
Yes.
Perfect.
You see you kind of through the texture right?
It smells so good.
Don't eat it.
This is step 4 which is filling.
And this is taking place at our factory.
So there's a few steps within filling.
The first is to clean the jars.
And then with those clean jars,
we're actually going to fill that real formula.
I'm so excited. This is the part that I am most psyched about.
Gonna be really fun.
And this honestly was the most exciting part.
Oh okay.
Seeing it all come together in the beautiful packaging.
Dammit.
I turned it off.
We need to wipe this.
This one is messed up.
She is laughing at me.
It's so much faster, it looks so much easier.
This is a lot harder than it looks.
If you mess it up, you mess the entire line up, and you have to start all over.
As you can see I had some difficulties.
This is step 5 which is the final stage of the entire journey.
And it is packaging!
What I'm going to do is close the lid of the jar and then pass it over to you and then
you can help with the carton.
Once the jars I filled they go down the conveyor belt and time to slap them into these boxes
and send them on their way.
So this is the finished product.
Yay.
I can't believe I made this!
We made it from scratch.
Literally for a watermelon fruit, into preservation, to formula, to like mixing it, to making it
this.
I can't believe I have this at home and I know exactly what goes into it now.
Thank you so much, Sarah.
Thanks for coming all the way from New York.
Thanks so much for watching guys.
Click here to subscribe to Refinery29 and click here to watch another video.
Bye.