SOKO GLAM
Soko Glam is the most trusted community and lifestyle brand with the best selection of Korean beauty products and content. Founded four years ago and co-led by Charlotte Cho, the chief curator and board-certified esthetician, and Dave Cho, a military veteran with over a decade of experience building and leading teams, Soko Glam is now the leading destination for all things K-Beauty. Soko Glam has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Elle, Allure, Glamour, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Teen Vogue, and more, helping women adapt the Korean “skin first” philosophy to their own daily routines. As author of the book, The Little Book of Skincare: Korean Beauty Secrets for Healthy, Glowing Skin and editor-in-chief of The Klog, Charlotte has been sought after for her expert advice and insight on the tenets of Korean skincare.
FM: How did you get into beauty? Why did you launch Soko Glam?
CC: When I was fresh out of college I moved from California to South Korea. There, I discovered that Koreans have a skin-first philosophy—they believe that skin care should be enjoyable and that it’s an investment in their overall well-being. My own experience with Korean skincare made me a firm believer in its benefits, and I was eager to share what I had learned. This led me and my husband Dave to found Soko Glam in 2012. Since then, I earned an esthetician license and brought the best of both Western and Korean practices to skincare.
FM: Why did you decided to open an online shop versus a brick-and-mortar store?
CC: Dave and I started Soko Glam in 2012 online because it was our accessible avenue to tell the story of K-beauty in an authentic way, from a personal journey standpoint and appeal from the lens of someone who understood Korean and American culture.
Everyone said it wouldn’t work because no one would want to buy beauty online, especially brands that no one has ever heard of. But we moved forward with the idea, because it was a passion project that involved my skincare journey, and I wanted to offer my carefully curated K-beauty products and the techniques with the rest of the world.
FM: K-Beauty has exploded over the past few years. Why do you think that is?
CC: When I first started Soko Glam, the term K-Beauty wasn’t even that well-known! Korea has now cemented itself for producing innovative products and having a skin-first philosophy. Koreans believe that skincare should be enjoyable and that it’s an investment in their overall well-being. This translates to the game-changing ingredients they use in their high-quality products.
FM: How do you decide what products to sell on your site?
CC: I constantly fly to Korea to meet with brands and see what products, ingredients, and applications are trending. As an esthetician, the first thing I look at is the ingredient list. I always want to bring the best, most effective products to Soko Glam that are also innovative and fun to use. Then each product goes through an extensive curation and testing process with our curation team to make sure it is compatible with different skin types and concerns.
FM: What differentiates your site from other sites (specifically other K Beauty sites)?
CC: Soko Glam has an amazing, supportive community of skincare enthusiasts on our website and social media platforms! We are constantly communicating with our fans and making new, fun content with them in mind. We also have very close relationships with the brands we carry, where we can give them feedback and have them reformulate or create exclusive products for Soko Glam.
FM: What are your retail price ranges?
CC: We focus on curating effective and accessible skincare products which range between $2-$50. We do have 10-step sets that retail for $200, which seems expensive, but not when you see that it includes 10 individual skincare products!
FM: What are your main beauty inspirations?
CC: My recent beauty inspirations are Christina Aguilera and Alicia Keys. They’ve recently come out on magazines and in public completely bare-faced. They’ve talked about being foundation-free. I love how confident and beautiful they look without makeup covering up their skin. It’s not easy to do that, especially being in the public eye and being expected to look a certain way. I hope it can inspire others to go bare-faced once in a while and embrace who they really are!
FM: How do you think beauty bloggers and influencers have changed the beauty industry as a whole?
CC: With social media, specifically YouTube, beauty and skincare knowledge became highly accessible for the first time. This broke down boundaries and now beauty influencers can connect with followers in a new, intimate way! Also, I credit Youtubers and creators for helping to shed light on the constant innovation and quality products coming from Korea. They’ve really helped K-beauty take off and make a difference in the beauty industry!
FM: What are the beauty products that you can’t live without?
CC: I am loving the new Easydew EX products I just curated! They contain a patented, medical-grade EGF that speeds up skin rejuvenation and they treated my dark circles, fine lines, and hyperpigmentation. Easydew EX used to only be available through medical clinics in South Korea, but now Soko Glam is the first to carry the brand in the U.S.!
FM: What’s the one piece of beauty advice you know now that you wish you could tell your 14-year-old self?
CC: I wish I told myself to use SPF everyday and stay out of direct sunlight! Wearing sun protection is the best thing you can do to prevent pigmentation. I grew up in California and loved to be in the sun and at the beach all the time, and now I’m seeing some of that pigmentation surface!
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