How Savor Beauty Founder Angela Jia Kim Is Making Korean Beauty Even Better

Angela Jia Kim calls herself an accidental beauty entrepreneur, but nothing feels accidental about Savor Beauty. The founder blended Korean skincare traditions with natural ingredients, creating a smart system that boils it all down to the basics—in the most beautiful way. Her products became so popular that Savor Beauty Spas were introduced because of customer demand. Kim shares her path from concert pianist to skincare savior, and all the beauty secrets she’s learned along the way.

How did you get the idea for Savor Beauty? My only beauty background was my Korean mom, though it was more of a lifestyle than a background, to really pay attention to what you’re putting on your skin and the methods. It all started when I was a concert pianist about to walk out on stage. I put on a natural lotion and I broke out in hives in front of hundreds of people. After that I started to look at labels and dug deeper. There were so many ingredients that were toxins, so I was like why can’t we use the power of nature to create face creams and serums that are good for you? I went down the rabbit hole and did lots of research. With my concert pianist background, I was used to trying to achieve extreme excellence and just really going deep with the subject. I spent a summer doing this. Because I was a very serious concert pianist practicing eight hours a day and touring a lot at the time, I thought I’d be a concert pianist all my life. This was a hobby. I would wake up early and create recipes and experiment in my kitchen. After a thousand tries, I started giving them as gifts to friends and they wanted to buy them as gifts for their friends. I was going on tour and had to create a website and that’s how I became an accident entrepreneur.

Since you didn’t have a beauty background, how did you perfect the formulations? Along the way I tested everything. It was discovering all of these beautiful, nature-made ingredients that are so powerful for your skin naturally. At the time, because it was just for my mom and me, there was no limit on the price of ingredients. It took me a good eight years just to figure things out—I don’t have an MBA degree. We opened our West Village Spa about eight years ago, and then a spa in the Hudson Valley, but I felt I arrived in 2017 on Earth Day when we opened our Upper West Side spa. Now I really feel like I have something to say—it’s been a decade of just trying and understanding things. I felt like I was in business school learning everything from employee management to formulation to branding to marketing to publicity and really tying it together synergistically and authentically.

How did you put your spin on traditional Korean beauty? When you grow up with something and it’s a lifestyle and not something taught in a structured way, but the way you were brought up, all the little pieces sink into who you are. I remember my mother washing her face and always telling me to wash my face, telling me it was too dry. She would get exotic creams from her sisters in Seoul and open them up like they were the most incredible gift. She would say treat your skin like the most expensive silk in the world.

How did you get the idea of numbering your products? Because I was born and grew up in America, I was struck very deeply when I went to Seoul to visit my family. My aunt would sit in front of her vanity for an hour massaging her face—she had so many products—and even my mom didn’t do that. She took this ritual so seriously. In America it’s not a priority to wash your face and massage it every single morning and night. Americans view it as a luxury, Koreans as a necessity. I was talking to a lot of customers and teaching a lot of the techniques. And the number one questions is ‘when do I put this on?’, so I used to number it. The numbering system came from simplicity, creating order out of disorder, a minimalist way of organizing a beauty routine. I did it for our customers at Savor spas, and realized we should just put this on the labels.

Why did you want to simplify Korean beauty? I think everything is about multitasking. As a busy mom and New Yorker, I know that you don’t have time to tone your face and take a cotton pad and put it on—that’s why we have a mister. A lot of our oils are multitasking, so you don’t need as many products as in a typical Korean routine. In the western world we refuse to take that kind of time. I also think there’s a movement toward minimalism. That’s how we pared it down to five steps.

Why is being organic and natural important to you? I feel strongly that what you put on your body is just as important because it’s absorbed into your bloodstream. That’s why doctors recommend nicotine patches and birth control. It’s time we wake up and say all these chemicals we put on our skin are getting into our bloodstream; studies are finding parabens and carcinogens there. If you’re going to clean up what you’re eating, clean up what you’re putting on your body as well.

What is your personal skincare routine? My evening routine is sacred. I double cleanse with Savor Beauty’s Coconut Jasmine Pre-cleanse Oil, followed with Pearl Cleansing Cream. It has crushed grapeseed and ginseng to sweep off dirt and grime. After I wash my face, I tone with rose Toning Mist, which is anti-aging, and then I usually use Red Raspberry Seed Serum; it really nourishes the skin. Then I layer on Truffle Face Cream, which is loaded with vitamin B for luminosity and locks in moisture. And then I finish with Caviar Eye Cream, which has a lot of omega 3 fatty acids to help with fine lines and dark circles. In the morning, I do everything in the shower because I’m very into multitasking. I’ll do a mask or peel, get out of the shower, mist my face again, then let my serum and cream soak in as I’m getting ready for the day.

What’s your beauty philosophy? We always say self-care every day. We want to inspire women to think of skincare as self-care and something pleasurable. How do you make even that one minute of washing your face at night time pleasurable and not a chore, with a baby or kid screaming in the background? I think that’s the gateway for a much deeper conversation on self-care. Your skin tells a big story about how you’re feeling emotionally, physically and spiritually. If you’re breaking out it tells me about your stress levels. Skincare is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s more than skin deep.