our journey
how so topical
came to exist.
We did not want to build just another beauty brand. The space is genuinely full, and adding to it without a real reason felt pointless to both of us. If we were going to do this, it had to be something that actually deserved to exist.
how we met
Sophie was running Seoul Tonic, her brand rooted in Korean wellness culture, and Cesy was finishing her MBA while working alongside her on the brand's social and marketing. Somewhere in the middle of building that together, they started talking about building something of their own, but only if they found something they were genuinely passionate about and believed deserved to exist. Genuine innovation, real evidence behind it, nothing built just to fill a gap in a crowded market.
finding the technology
Through Sophie's relationship with the Korea Trade Association, who had been an incredible support throughout her years building Seoul Tonic, they got access to something that had been quietly in development for years inside a Korean government-funded lab. The lab had originally been focused on wound healing research, which is where some of the most serious skin science comes from, and had developed a patented piezoelectric mineral complex that generates its own measurable microcurrent when pressed against skin. No device, no battery, just pressure producing real, verified electricity. The kind of technology that gets funded by governments for medical applications before anyone thinks to put it in a mask.
the exclusive rights
We secured exclusive rights to bring this patent to Australia and New Zealand, which is a big part of why we are so excited about what we have built. Nobody else in our market can do what this mask does, and that is not a marketing claim, it is a legal one.
eighteen months, multiple trips to Korea, and more samples than you can imagine
What followed was eighteen months of rigorous testing, multiple South Korea trips and more samples than you can imagine. We were not going to rush something just because the technology was extraordinary. The formula had to work on Cesy's acne-prone skin and Sophie's sensitive skin, or we were not done. We went back to the lab again and again, pulled the fragrance out entirely, built in a full clinical peptide stack, rebuilt the brightening complex, and kept going until it genuinely felt right. The version we have now is the one we are genuinely proud of.
the evidence
Before we sold a single mask we ensured all the independent testing and clinical studies stacked up. The commissioned independent safety testing across sixty people aged 19 to 75 in Korea and Germany showed there was zero reactions across both studies.
This is the product we actually use. We are proud of it, and we are just getting started.
what comes next
The so mask is the first product in what we are building as a considered portfolio of beauty that actually earns its place. Every product we develop starts from the same place — is there genuine innovation here, does the science support it, and would we use it ourselves? Our next product is already in development and we are equally obsessed with it. If you want to know what it is before anyone else does, that conversation is happening inside the so topical society.