Before Jude Chao, aka fiddysnails, started her blog Fifty Shades Of Snail in 2015, sheet masks were one of the first products that got her interested in Asian skincare—and she’s since taken on an almost daily sheet mask habit. So, when she began to think about launching a beauty brand, sheet masks seemed like a no-brainer.
“The barrier to entry is really, really low, especially for people that are new to skincare. It’s not something that you feel like you need to commit to using every single night if that’s not realistic with your schedule or your lifestyle,” says Chao. “They are generally not something that’s really expensive, and they’re something that gives you a pretty immediate effect. Like, no matter what, a decent sheet mask will hydrate your skin, and you’ll see that, which is super fun and super encouraging. It makes you happy right away.”
For her brand, Love, Jude, Chao didn’t want to create just any sheet mask. She wanted to create her dream version of a sheet mask. In her experience, the best sheet masks tend to come from Taiwan. “It’s a really small country. There aren’t that many manufacturing facilities, so what happens is there’s almost like a uniform baseline of effectiveness that everyone can hit,” says the Taiwanese American. “I can grab any Taiwanese sheet mask and, 99% of the time, it’s going to work really well for me. I know exactly what to expect, and there isn’t a huge variance in quality from great to horrible. That kind of consistency, quality and really reasonable pricing was exactly what I wanted to hit.”
Love, Jude co-founder Jude Chao started her blog Fifty Shades of Snail in 2015.
In late 2019, Chao’s friend and Love, Jude co-founder Eric H. W. Wu reached out to her to ask if she would like to connect with the Taiwanese manufacturer the brand now partners with. Wu handles production design and development for Love, Jude. The two collaborated with the factory sending samples back and forth for about six months before introducing the brand’s three masks in late June 2021. The three masks are: Sexy Radish, which focuses on calming and hydration; Three Fingers, which focuses on brightening; and Cat Pouch, which focuses on smoothing and lifting. They retail for $4 individually or $18 for a box of six.
The sheet masks address pain points Chao has encountered with other sheet masks such as the amount of formula included. “I hate when I get a sheet mask and open it, and it’s like barely damp and, then, it just dries out,” she says. “Then, the downside of having a lot of essence per mask is that, if it’s a little bit on the thin side, it’s really drippy and runny and will get in your eyes and your mouth. So, we intentionally worked to make sure that our essence formula is thick enough so that it stays where it’s supposed to.” Each Love, Jude mask includes 28 milliliters of essence. Another point point for Chao has been the sizes of sheet masks. Some have eye and mouth holes that are too big or too small. Chao sought to perfect a medium-sized Goldilocks solution. She says, “No single sheet mask can fit every face, but we wanted one that was made in a way that most people will be able to wear it comfortably.”
Chao strives for Love, Jude to provide serious skincare without being overly serious. Its packaging is eye-catching, and features a pastel color palette and playful illustrations. “If you know me and if you follow me and you see this in a store, you would know right away that this is mine,” says Chao, adding, “The thing that makes you the most consistent and that will help you get the most out of your skincare routine is if it brings you joy, too. So, this is for people that don’t want to just go super basic and anyone that wants to supplement whatever they’re doing with their skincare routine with something that they can really enjoy and that makes them smile when they put it on.”
Love, Jude launched three masks in late June 2021: Sexy Radish focuses on calming and hydration, Three Fingers focuses on brightening, and Cat Pouch focuses on smoothing and lifting. R Villasante
Love, Jude is available on Holy Snails, a K-Beauty blog turned skincare brand and e-commerce destination where Chao is a digital marketing director, Bellbees and Glowie Co. The plan is to stick to external outlets to sell the brand and forgo direct-to-consumer distribution. “We’ve partnered with [e-tailers] that already have great track records of order fulfillment and customer service, and they’re really good at what they do,” says Chao. “So, for the customer end, it’s something that would just be a little bit more reliable to get from, and they already know what they’re doing as far as selling to consumers.”
Glowie Co and Holy Snails ship internationally, and Chao is soon partnering with the website Isle of Skin to make Love, Jude available in India. She says, “I, for some reason, have a pretty strong following there—it’s second only to the U.S.—so we really want to be able to offer our products to that market domestically, too.” Fifty Shades of Snail has an email subscriber list of 10,000 and receives 150,000-plus monthly page views, according to statistics supplied on its site. Chao has more than 49,000 followers on Instagram.
Chao expects to expand Love, Jude’s selection of sheet masks with both budget-friendly and higher-end options. The brand may also branch out to other skincare product categories eventually but, for the foreseeable future, Chao is sticking with sheet masks. “The thing that I really want to communicate to people, whether they already know who I am or they actually see the masks first without knowing anything about me, is that this project has been something that has been important to me. It’s like a thank you to the people that have followed me and shared my content and engaged with me for all these years,” she says. “I’m so grateful because those are the people who made this possible—and that’s why it’s called Love, Jude because it’s my love letter to the people who have encouraged, supported and shared me, and have been a part of my life in a pretty major way for the past six years.”
Source link : https://www.beautyindependent.com/love-jude-love-letter-taiwanese-american-skincare-blogger-jude-chao-followers-sheet-masks
