Most frequent flyers are familiar with the toll of travel. High air mileage can mean poor sleep, dietary problems and out-of-whack skin.
For Sunny Oh, a regular jetsetter between Los Angeles and Seoul, the impact on her skin was particularly burdensome, and she was desperate for a solution to its extreme dryness. On a plane trip to Seoul in 2022, she had an aha moment watching flight attendees spray serum on their faces with glowing results.
Determined to replicate those results, Oh, who says she’s a major shareholder in an undisclosed technology equipment manufacturing company publicly listed in South Korea, began dreaming up an all-mist skincare brand convenient for people on-the-go. She teamed up with two friends—Christine Moon, former creative director at Peri.A, an upscale fashion boutique in Beverly Hills, and Lena Park, a web designer and former senior luxury manager at The RealReal—to bring her dream to life by launching Mixik Skin, which calls itself the first all-mist K-Beauty skincare brand.
Pronounced “mix-it” (the “k” in the name nods at the Korean American co-founders’ Korean roots), it’s starting with four mist skincare products priced individually from $25 to $29 for 2.7-oz. full-size bottles and $12 to $13 for 1.01-oz. travel-size bottles: Cleansing Oil, Botanical Serum, Jelly Toner and Hydra Cream.
Mixik is entering Thirteen Lune, the inclusive e-tailer with a store in Los Angeles. Along with the retail partnership, the brand’s laid-back, fun vibe and vibrant packaging (its spray bottles are topped with marbled caps in bright hues) marry South Korean and Angeleno sensibilities.
Designed for people with every skin type, Mixik’s products include the ingredients blue agave, squalene, rosewater, galactomyces ferment filtrate and ceramides, and they work with gentle activation. You simply give them a good shake and spray them directly on the skin.
“In Korea, everyone is already used to spraying on skincare. It is part of our culture,” says Moon. “It will be a good challenge to educate a not-so-insular audience.” Park chimes in, “Initially, we thought we would target a younger audience, more along the lines of 18 to 30. Everyone wants to target gen Z, but, after testing and seeding products, we shifted our gears broader and are now at ages 25 to 60.”
Park will lead the educational charge at Mixik with in-person demonstrations, experiential events, social media tutorials on product application and dives into building Mixik’s business. “We wanted to be really transparent in how our products came to be and the design process behind it,” says Park. “It’s so important to show the evolution of a brand story because, to so many, it can seem like they pop up overnight, and they just don’t.”
“We really wanted to deliver the four most essential steps in a regime.”
On the product front, education will focus on the spray format, but won’t stop there. It will also focus on slimming down skincare routines from the expansive 10- to 12-step rigmaroles K-Beauty aficionados have become accustomed to.
“We really wanted to deliver the four most essential steps in a regime, the same that was passed down to us through our mothers,” says Park. “A lot of Koreans will resonate with this: You have to double cleanse. Even if you’re not wearing makeup, you should be double cleansing because we are always wearing SPF and other environmental factors that could land up on the skin.” She adds, “We felt [four steps] were really what anyone needs in order to get their Korean beauty.”
Mixik is fully self-funded and manufactured in South Korea. “It’s important to us that we carry out our own vision on our own terms,” says Park. Moon says, “We sought out production in Korea because we are proud of and believe in the beauty research and development that is happening in South Korea.”
Mixik encountered a few hurdles on the way to launch. In particular, target customers, retail buyers and beauty industry experts testing product samples weren’t fans of an early packaging prototype. The packaging has been tweaked to address their concerns.
Park recounts, “Over the six-month period that we gathered feedback, we consistently heard three main things: issues with readability, wanting more product descriptions on packaging and interest in more colorful cap closures.”
To help grow its audience, Mixik plans to collaborate with micro-influencers. Once it lifts brand awareness, it hopes to enlarge its retail footprint. Among Mixik’s goal retail partners are Ulta Beauty, Credo, The Detox Market and Selfridges.
“We will always prioritize where our customers are,” says Park. “If they say you need to be at Sephora or another retailer, we will make it happen.”
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