How Glow Recipe’s Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream Quickly Became A Sephora Bestseller

Consumers are very skeptical of eye creams. Glow Recipe co-founder Sarah Lee says they’re constantly asking, “If you have a moisturizer, why don’t you just extend that usage all the way to your eye area?”

Glow Recipe wanted to prove a cream targeting the eye area is different from a moisturizer and introduced Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream to do so. While the brand already had Avocado Melt Retinol Eye Cream in its product lineup, Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream was specifically developed to address dark circles.

Since its September launch, Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream has become Glow Recipe’s most successful product release to date and is currently the No. 1 eye cream on Sephora’s website. According to Lee, the eye gel cream promptly garnered $2 million in earned media value, a performance of digital earned media used by the influencer marketing insights firm Tribe Dynamics, putting it atop of the skincare brand heap.

“Because of the success, we’re really excited to continue to educate on the importance of using an eye cream in the routine and break that barrier around whether it’s necessary,” says Lee. Ahead, she and Christine Chang, her co-founder at Glow Recipe, talk about the social strategy that supercharged the eye gel cream and delivering an eye cream that stands out.

Launch date: September 2022

Glow Recipe’s sales growth 2022 versus 2021: 50% projected ($100 million to $150 million)

Total retail doors: 1,120

The inspiration: Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream is an extension of Glow Recipe’s Guava collection that launched last year with Guava Vitamin C Serum as its centerpiece. The serum jumped to No. 1 in skincare at Sephora when it hit the market. The collection pairs guava, which the brand describes as four times more antioxidant-rich than an orange, with skincare stalwart vitamin C.

“Once we saw the success, we knew that our community was very excited about this franchise, and we wanted to make sure to expand and extend it,” says Lee. Referring to Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream, she adds, “When we thought about how we wanted to create a unique innovation in the market, we were thinking about the core needs for an eye cream, and the first thing that we really wanted to tackle was brightening the dark circles, which is a No. 1 skin concern for the eye area.”

The development process: “Because the eye area is so delicate, we made sure that we encapsulated this vitamin C ingredient so that the penetration to the eye area is very gradual and therefore it is more gentle to the skin while not compromising on any of the efficacy,” says Lee. “When we looked at a lot of the reviews online, people were saying that a lot of the eye creams that they liked were moisturizing for the skin, but not necessarily really honing in on the dark circle treatment aspect. We wanted to go all in on that, which is why we focused on efficacy first and foremost.”

It took Glow Recipe over a year to perfect Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream. The product contains encapsulated vitamin C blended with 3% niacinamide, peptides, caffeine and guava seed oil. “For this one, we had such a clear idea of the exact concern that we wanted to target, so the ingredients came together fairly quickly, but there’s always a lot of research and investigation that goes on as we refine the formula,” says Chang.  “Thinking about our community and how they use these products not only for day-to-day AM and PM eye area treatment, it has to work with the rest of their lifestyle, which includes working under makeup and brightening instantly, but also over time.”

Glow Recipe conducted consumer perception clinical testing and expert clinical evaluations. “With claims, we had a very specific threshold we wanted to surpass. You see a lot of clinical study results where, for example, 90% plus have agreed that the products helped with dark circles,” says Lee. “We wanted them to be all above 95%, which is a very high, ambitious goal. All of the results that we’ve seen, 100% of all of the participants in the clinical study have agreed that our formulation did treat the dark circles not just with the under eye, but over the eyelid as well, and that they experienced firming as well as depuffing.”

Challenges along the way: Formulating an eye cream can be tricky. One of the biggest challenges in Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream’s development process was maintaining the stability and gentleness of its 10% vitamin C.

“For eye creams, the expectations are obviously high, but the disappointment has been real,” says Lee. “Along the way, we had to make sure that the formula was stable and the texture was not compromised because we wanted a creamy texture that melted right into the skin and not settle in your crease. In the beginning, we had seen some very off textures, and over a few iterations, we got there.”

Social media strategy: Last year, Glow Recipe’s Watermelon Glow Dew Drops and Watermelon Glow Pore-Tight Toner went viral on TikTok thanks to endorsements from influencers Mikayla Nogueira and Glamzilla. As a consequence, the brand saw its daily sales spike 600%, and sales of the products upon launch were higher than typical for Black Friday.

Glow Recipe generally shapes its content strategy as it develops products. The game plan for Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream centered on highlighting the product’s efficacy. The brand pinned down infographics and educational content, and worked with paid influencers and Glow Recipe superfans turned ambassadors to show their personal journeys incorporating the eye gel cream into their routines.

Visuals and tutorials demonstrated product application around the entire eyelid, and on the 11 or glabellar lines in between the eyebrows and smile lines. “That’s a tip we learned in Korea where you would apply any remnants of your eye cream around areas of the face that are more prone to lines,” says Chang. “I think [tutorials] paired nicely with our overarching concept around this product, which is efficacy, but also gentleness and being able to deliver both at the same time.”

Retail strategy: Glow Recipe partnered with Sephora on a front-of-store table display with Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream and Guava Vitamin C Serum in stores across the United States and Canada. At the displays, the brand showcased before-and-after photography, clinical claims and study results for Guava Vitamin C Bright-Eye Gel Cream.

The product was featured on Sephora’s Instagram Reels, too. The Reels video surpassed 1 million views in a couple of days. “The strong before-and-after as well as the clinical claims were the key drivers of success for this specific SKU,” says Lee. “I think that is usually what helps to drive traffic as well as conversion. I think the results are really compelling for the customers.”

Expanding the product assortment: Glow Recipe plans to unveil a new fruit a year to expand a skincare lineup that has stretched to avocado, blueberry, banana, guava, plum, watermelon, strawberry and papaya products. The fruits are combined with other active ingredients in the brand’s formulas. “We think about how we want to introduce a new fruit because it really stems from solving the skin concern for our community,” says Lee.

The brand has six serums in its portfolio and fewer than 20 products in total. In tandem with efficacy, the brand strives to provide intriguing experiences with its products. “If you look forward to your skincare routine every single day, you’re going to see results,” says Lee. “We really make sure that skincare is approachable for all, which is our mission and vision.”

Part of Glow Recipe’s mission involves nailing textures and fun packaging. “All of our products are able to tell a story pretty much,” says Lee. “For the Guava Eye Cream, it actually is a similar shape to the face serum, but the original face serum was inspired by the shape of guava.”

Dream eye cream customer: “There are so many people out there with beautiful eyes like Zoe Kravitz, for example,” says Chang. “I would also add Taylor Swift to this because she just finished an album, and I’m sure anyone who’s created a work that massive can get the benefits of a soothing, brightening eye cream.”