Why I Created ChokChok Skin

Let me tell you, trying to achieve the “perfect” complexion has been a constant uphill battle. 

In my teens, I had the occasional pimple. I can still smell the Noxzema cleanser I used to scrub at my face hoping I could just scrub the pimples away. Some of the pimples were small and would eventually go away in a few days. And some were painful cystic acne that looked more like giant tumors under my skin. They were mostly around my nose, which was the worst possible place! I remember trying to cover my face up with as much concealer I could, which just made the cystic pimples angrier. 

Then in my 20’s and 30’s, I developed hormonal acne after having three babies!! Then in my 40’s came the... MELASMA!! For those of you who might not know, melasma is a skin condition that causes dark patches of different colors that can be triggered by hormonal changes and/or sun exposure. Back then in the 80’s I would lay out in the sun and slather baby oil all over my face and body. You might have seen old movies where girls layout in the sun with those tin foil sheets around their faces... it was the cool thing to do back then! If only I could travel back in time to the 80’s and tell my younger self to throw out the oil and use sunscreen! Melasma has been an entirely different beast compared to pimples because no matter what I did, no product or treatment I tried truly lightened the dark patches for good. So as you can tell, my skincare journey has been an uphill battle. 

I think because I’ve had so many ups and downs with my skin, I have always been interested, and maybe even obsessed, with skincare products. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve always paid close attention to what I was putting on my face. I’ve tried so many different products to figure out what worked for my skin and what didn’t. Honestly, to get to that point where you know which products will give you amazing results, and which products will irritate your skin or cause breakouts is so frustrating. There were so many products that didn’t work for me at that time and I didn’t exactly know why. 

The problem was that I had a very limited understanding of what each ingredient did and the benefit of each ingredient. Unlike today, in the 90’s and even early 2000s, skincare companies didn’t provide a lot of information as to what ingredients were in their products and unless you were a chemist, the average consumer didn’t really know what those ingredients did. Nowadays, practically everything is on the internet and I wanted to know exactly what ingredients I was putting on my face. I was constantly researching and talking to dermatologists about the ingredients in my skincare products and my passion for skincare started to grow even more. That’s when I decided to create chokchok skin. 

Chokchok is a Korean word that means dewy, glowy, bouncy skin. Who wouldn’t want that?? I decided to start with sheet masks because it’s an easy all in one treatment that not only feels luxurious, but it’s proven to be quite effective and affordable. Sheet masks allow you to treat your skin with active, effective ingredients all at once and provide a way to deliver to your skin over a prolonged period of time of 15-20 minutes. Sheet masks are also something that I’m familiar with. Being Korean, I’ve been using sheet masks before they became widely popular here in America. I remember laying around the house with my sheet mask on recreating the spa-like moments right in my home. 

When I was first developing the formulation for the essence inside my sheet mask I went back to my Korean roots of traditional medicinal herbs, called Hanbang. Some of the star ingredients are Portulaca Oleracea Extract (Purslane), Panax Ginseng Root Extract, Morus Alba Bark Extract (White Mulberry), and Artemisia Princeps Extract (Mugwort) and more. These combined herbal extracts give powerful anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, age-defying benefits with rich in hydration and brightening effects. 

The most important thing to me was adding only ingredients that are high quality and proven to be effective and safe. Sourcing only the natural, high-quality ingredients from a reputable Korean lab was important and as an animal lover and proud owner of three dogs and a cat, no animal-testing was an absolute must. At the end of the day, my mission is to make high-quality Korean beauty inspired skincare accessible here in America. 

I can’t wait for you to try my sheet mask and help you achieve your chokchok skin! 

With love,
Clara