How do you make a beauty product go viral? Youthforia’s founder Fiona Chan bares it all

From social media virality to products with a unique spin, Chan has made all the right moves to garner attention for Youthforia

Enter the hashtag ‘#youthforia’ on Google’s search bar and the results will set the right context for nascent beauty brand Youthforia’s social media accomplishments. While ‘#youthforia’ boasts a whopping 36.6 million views on TikTok, the brand’s account on the platform has built a community of 3.5 million followers. The TikTok-star brand is picking up pace on Instagram as well; its Instagram account has managed to pique the interests of 53,30,000 (and counting) followers, most of whom interact with the brand and its content. It has taken only two years for the brand to attract such enormous traffic on social media. Hence, it not only makes a solid case for social media endeavours done right but also elevates the yardstick for nascent beauty brands, especially those targeting Gen-Z as their key audience. In a chat with The Established, Fiona Chan, founder and CEO of Youthforia, shares the journey of her beauty line.

Inspiration to inception

Professionally, Chan was into selling software before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Travelling from one city to another came as an axiomatic part of her job which means she was exposed to oscillating weather conditions. “I remember going to sleep with an N95 on because it was so polluted, and I realised I was really reacting poorly to the environment,” Chan had told Worklife, confessing that the skincare she was using in San Francisco, where she’s based out of, wasn’t working for her anymore.

In early 2020, when the pandemic brought the world to a halt, Chan, who was in Hong Kong at the time, used the standstill as an opportunity to seek respite from her hectic work and engage in a space that enticed her ever since she was a kid—beauty. “I don’t come from the beauty industry but I’ve always wanted to work with make-up. I decided to start a make-up brand as I was unable to find products that worked for me,” admits the 31-year-old.

Why the name ‘Youthforia’? “Youthforia refers to those moments when you’re really happy in your adulthood and are reminded of your favourite childhood memories—think your first time buying make-up, or going to Disneyland, or spending time with family members,” shares Chan.

Make-up you can sleep in?

“I started the brand during the first week of the pandemic and I kept thinking how great it would be to create make-up you can sleep in,” says Chan, indicating her inquisitiveness about skin-friendly make-up products, perhaps, due to her personal struggle with finding such products. Whether a make-up fanatic or not, you must absolutely take off all traces of product on your skin before hitting the sack is a golden thumb rule of beauty, to avoid clogged pores, acne and damaged skin. However, Chan would end up skimping over the make-up removal step after a night out with friends, just as many of us would, which would result in skin irritation.

“I really wanted to be able to sleep in my make-up because it’s something I’ve always done; make-up doesn’t know what time of the day it is—I just truly wanted something that could act like skincare and could be worn whenever you felt like it,” says Chan.

She then created make-up products with ‘green chemistry’ to minimise nasty after-effects as much as possible. Elaborating on the good-for-your-skin phenomenon, she explains, “It’s [green chemistry] a set of 12 principles centred around pollution prevention. We try to follow as many of the principles as we can. After spending a lot of time in polluted cities, it was really important for me that we were intentional with the ingredients selected. At Youthforia, whenever it’s possible, we try to find plant-based sources for our ingredients.”

According to Chan, the feature of being able to sleep in Youthforia’s make-up instilled the customer’s trust in the quality of the products. “I have extremely sensitive skin and I’ve ended up at the hospital several times with skin reactions, so this also lends a level of transparency to how far I am willing to test our products,” she adds. “Of course, I don’t recommend sleeping in make-up as a replacement to your skincare routine.”

The role of social media 

If you follow beauty even in the slightest degree on social media, it’s impossible that a video featuring the colour-changing (read: pH activated) BYO BLUSH from Youthforia wouldn’t have cropped up on your feed—that’s how viral the product, and thus, the brand, became on TikTok and Instagram. “Some of our early videos that went viral had just me comparing our colour-changing blush [BYO BLUSH] to other blushes in the market—both powder and liquid. I think showing how it changes colours in a few seconds and how it looks as compared to other blushes, made it unique, leaving viewers curious. Additionally, because the blush comes in an oil format, it endowed a beautiful natural highlighter effect, which also resonated with the trending dewy skin,” says Chan, talking about how and why her short-form videos on both platforms—especially TikTok—took off. 

However, it wasn’t a conscious plan, says the beauty entrepreneur. “I do love making short-form content because you never know what will become popular or resonate with people. At first, I thought people might find it interesting because it was such a different concept than what existed in the market,” shares Chan.

“I always intended to be a TikTok native brand,” she told Worklife, which is why she moved back to San Francisco, given that the application was banned in Hong Kong. Upon being asked if virality should be an intentional, go-to strategy to create a buzz at the commencement of a brand, Chan says, “I think it’s more important for founders to find a medium that works best for them, and I don’t think that necessarily has to be virality, if it’s not a format that they want to create content for. I think my biggest advice for founders is to share their authentic story—and share it in a way that feels true to themselves. I love using Instagram—it’s a great way to get one-on-one time with your customers and share tips and tricks; it also gives us insights about their pain points.”

The way forward

To embark on an entrepreneurial journey during a global pandemic was challenging and came with its own set of struggles. “In the beginning, I built and launched the brand during a pandemic so there was always something in the manufacturing or supply chain that was going wrong,” reveals Chan. “There’s always a new challenge, but I almost expect not everything to go right and plan for different scenarios. And, when things do go wrong, instead of stressing out too much, I’ll start trying to solve problems,” she furthers.

Chan prudently kickstarted the brand by introducing a crisp set of products so as to  focus on newer innovations and technologies in an existing category whose offerings have become mundane. After enjoying the success of her BYO BLUSH range, she’s now ventured into skincare with a primer, setting spray and cleanser. Youthforia is also the first East Asian brand to launch on American beauty retailer Ulta Beauty. “I feel really proud. There’s a huge make-up culture in Asia that I was inspired by when I lived there and it’s amazing that I get to share it.” 

Chan is dead set on being inclusive and diverse, in terms of both product formulations and representation—her social media accounts testify to that. “We’re working on a very ambitious project, and it’s the formula I’m the proudest of yet,” she says, while revealing that she’s going to come up with more make-up that acts like skincare in the time to come.

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