Bringing Asian skincare to Irish shelves
Meet the Mayo-based entrepreneur behind Face Skincare
AS consumers place greater emphasis on longevity skin health, Asian beauty products are steadily gaining popularity and making their way to Ireland.
With custom delay, unexpected import duties, and delivery times taking upwards of six weeks, it often has difficulty getting here.
For Castlebar native Olaide Anjorin, that challenge became a business opportunity.
After spending eight years living in Asia, including time in Taiwan and South Korea, she returned to Ireland with a passion for the skincare products she had discovered abroad and a determination to make them more accessible to Irish consumers.
After completing a Master’s degree in Business Marketing and International Communications, Olaide moved to Taiwan to undertake a marketing internship.
“And then I got really lucky,” she told The Mayo News. “I got loads of wonderful opportunities in marketing.”
During her time abroad, which also included modelling work, she became increasingly interested in skin care, particularly Korean skincare (K-beauty).
“When Covid hit, I decided to come home. I was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do next.”
In Ireland, Olaide quickly noticed a gap in the market.
"It wasn't very accessible in Ireland. I was ordering things, and it was taking somewhere up to five weeks to come," she recalled.
"With skincare, you only remember you need it when it's almost gone."
With a drive to start a business already well affirmed, the Mayo woman knew this was the business she had to start.
“I said to myself, let’s start this. And that’s how FaceSkincare was born,” she said.
OLAIDE began developing a business plan and worked closely with a mentor as she laid the foundations for the company.
"Funding and a business plan started to come together over time," she said.
While she says launching the business was relatively smooth, she admits entrepreneurship can be unpredictable.
"One day everything is great, and then another minute everything can come crashing down," she confessed.
"While sometimes I feel like I am putting out little fires all the time, I have learned that it will always work itself out."
She credits organisations such as Network Ireland and the Chamber of Commerce for helping her navigate the challenges of running a business.
"It's been such a wonderful community of Irish women with businesses who are very supportive," she added.
Establishing FaceSkincare
TODAY, Face Skincare specialises in sourcing Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese skincare products for the Irish market.
"Face Skincare is a Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese skincare brand that brings products from Asia to Ireland," Olaide explained.
Having spent years living in Asia, she discovered a range of established heritage brands that were largely unavailable to Irish consumers.
"There are so many things on the market these days. We get messages daily asking, 'Are these products real?'" she said.
With social media trends and viral products dominating much of the skincare conversation online, she hopes Face Skincare can offer customers confidence that the products they are buying are authentic and trustworthy.
"So that's what we did with Face Skincare," she said.
ALONGSIDE selling skincare products, Olaide is passionate about educating consumers and helping them make informed decisions.
"Don't just pick something and buy it because it's popular. Read the ingredients," she advised.
Understanding skin type is one of the most important starting points, she believes. Speaking at a recent Face Skincare event at The Grace in Westport, she shared a simple way for people to identify their skin type.
"When you get out of the shower and put nothing on your face for the first hour, does it feel tight? Does it feel dry? Does it feel oily? Whatever happens, that's your skin type," she explained.
For Olaide, education is just as important as sales.
"We try to educate people. I don't want to just be like, 'Buy, buy, buy.'"
Looking to the future
AS FaceSkincare continues to grow, Olaide’s long-term ambition is to open an official flagship store.
“Right now, I’m grateful to be able to say that we’ve shipped to every county in Ireland,” she said.
Looking ahead, she hopes to build a business with a strong reputation and loyal customer base that can thrive independently.
“What I would love is for the business to run itself. I don’t want it to always rely on advertising. People know the products, they know they can trust them, and FaceSkincare becomes something that continues to grow because it’s valuable and genuinely works for people,” she said.