Glossy Pop Newsletter: Glow Recipe prioritizes IRL community with a masterclass tour

October 11, 2024 Mary

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In advance of its 10th anniversary, Glow Recipe is embarking on an international tour, hosting masterclasses for its community. According to co-founder and co-CEO Christine Chang, it’s the brand’s biggest IRL community initiative ever — unsurprising during a time packed with brands re-focusing on their customers.

The North American leg of the tour kicked off in Miami in mid-September and has already stopped in Boston. It will also make stops D.C., Chicago, Irvine, Austin, Dallas, Montreal and Toronto. Plus, Glow Recipe will make international stops in Rio, Paris and London and has already hosted one virtual date, with another to come. All stops on the tour are already sold out. Most stops included two community sessions and some cities included one session for influencers.

Tickets were $20 (an accountability fee of sorts, so people would show up), and at each stop, guests will receive swag bags with free Glow Recipe products and $20 Sephora gift cards. The brand worked with Sephora to provide these gift cards.

Chang said it was important for the tour to make stops in cities that are oft -ignored by brand activations. “Being able to do this class in D.C., Boston and Austin, cities outside of New York and LA, has meant a lot to people. We’ve heard time and time again that people drove in from six hours away just to attend this class because they were excited for an opportunity to engage with Glow,” she said.

Of its impetus, co-founder and co-CEO Sarah Lee said, “What we wanted to do was bring the foundation of Glow Recipe [to life] for our community. Education has always been such an important part of how we’ve engaged with our community and how we’ve grown our business.” The “set” is based on Lee’s apartment where she and Chang first conceived the business — while wearing sheet masks and drinking wine. To that end, Hampton Water is providing wine at every stop. The key word in mind for the vibe was “cozy.”

Already, Lee said, she has been able to see how hungry the brand’s community is “for education … [they] just need the right guidance to understand ingredients, learn what their skin type is, even what their skin concern is.”

Glossy Pop Newsletter: Glow Recipe prioritizes IRL community with a masterclass tour

The masterclass starts off with sheet masking, a hallmark of Chang and Lee’s roots. To make it special, the brand brought back a previously discontinued product, its Watermelon Glow Jelly Sheet Mask, which is also available on its e-commerce site while supplies last.

The masterclass tour speaks to a number of trends in beauty marketing right now. Finding new and creative ways to engage community is at the top of every brand’s mind and shrinking the gap in how customers and influencers are treated has never been more important. Enter masterclasses, which have grown in popularity as they inherently facilitate community engagement. In January, Glossy Pop reported on Saie’s masterclass series, which also served as a community-building initiative.

“The goal [for these classes] was to give guests an opportunity to not only be immersed and engaged with the brand but also to treat them like influencers. Everyone sees influencer unboxings and [influencer] experiences online, and we wanted to create a space where our customers felt like they were getting that type of treatment.”

It was exciting for Carla Hill, who attended one of the two sessions in Miami (the brand held two community sessions and one influencer session there). Hill, 52, described herself as someone who goes to Sephora “like it’s the grocery store” and has been a fan of Glow Recipe since it launched its cult-favorite Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dew Drops Serum in 2022. “I had no idea that my skin-care routine would pretty much be covered. It was very generous of Glow Recipe [to gift products], in addition to getting the gift card. I wasn’t prepared to be that spoiled. It was a lovely gesture on the part of the company but also just a nice vibe,” Hill said.

Guests received the aforementioned Watermelon Jelly Sheet Mask, full-size Avocado Cleanser, a choice of full-size moisturizer (Pink Juice Moisturizer or Plum Cream), travel size Dew Drops Travel Size, a deluxe sample of its newest launch, its Blackberry Retinol serum and a compact mirror, all in a special masterclass tote bag.

After the completion of the masterclass, guests were treated to portraits featuring their post-class glow. “We wanted to talk about real skin acceptance, so we had a photo studio. Everyone’s coming with a bare face, being vulnerable, doing their skin-care routine together, enjoying that process,” Chang said. “We see such joy in that sharing. But part of that sharing is also making sure that there are assets for participants to be able to post on their socials if they want to,” she said.

“Masterclasses are not new for us. This felt like a homecoming of sorts because we’ve done masterclasses since day one in our office at Sephora, in the back rooms at Sephora, next to the beauty Studio and at our Grove night market in LA five years ago. We have done this time and time again. But what was really meaningful [this time] was to be able to create an environment that felt comfortable [where] everyone showed up as themselves and was able to learn, be open, vulnerable and make connections,” Chang said, explaining that while the scale might be bigger than ever, the concept was not.

Collab of the week

Lili Claspe x Jasmine Tookes

Launched on Thursday, LA-based jewelry brand Lili Clasp, and supermodel/fitness app and workout apparel brand, Joja-founder Jasmine Tookes, debuted a capsule collection including necklaces, rings, earrings, brooches and belts. The items range from $100 – $500. “I’ve always admired [Lili Claspe founder, Stephie Tchamanian’s] vision and creativity, and this collaboration truly showcased that. She infused her unique style into our project, and we blended our ideas effortlessly,” Jasmine Tookes told Glossy of the collab, which she said was inspired by the iconic ’90s supermodels and vintage Ralph Lauren runways. For the brand, this collaboration also marks its first time creating both belts and brooches, Tchamanian noted.

Shop it here.