Skin Need has made the leap from a beauty professional’s best kept secret to now being retail ready. Founder Christal Leung tells David Ho all about building a skincare brand in today’s retail market, current trends, generational differences in beauty, and what consumers need

Fresh from opening their flagship store in Hong Kong’s Times Square, Skin Need is the latest brand making waves in the beauty space. With a vegan and fragrance free ethos, they carry everything you’ll need for your beauty routine, from SPFs to moisturisers.

Since its establishment in 2017, Skin Need had been solely circulated to beauty professionals via a distribution business model. With the opening of their flagship retail space in Causeway Bay, the brand is ready to take it to the next level with a direct to consumer approach.

Christal Leung is the founder of the Hong Kong-based brand. Prior to establishing Skin Need in 2017, she had co-established Woke Up Like This beauty salon with her sister Tawnia Lai and beauty influencer Jenn Lam in 2019. She talks to #legend about building her brand and how it fits into today’s competitive beauty market and Gen Z skincare trends.

To those new to your brand, please give us a quick intro about it.

Skin Need – Your Private Formula is a Hong Kong based, US made skincare brand that originated from the need of post-invasive treatment care when procedures such as laser, HIFU, microneedling…etc were first introduced for in-office use, offering hypoallergenic formulas with skin repairing properties to optimize treatment results. The collection has evolved to allow users to enjoy clean and functional skincare formulas on a daily basis, marrying skin regeneration properties with hypoallergenicity and product customisation that cater to an individual’s unique skin type and concerns.

What differentiates your brand/products from other skincare lines out there?

Other than being vegan and fragrance free, Skin Need is especially designed for the Asian skin that is prone to skin sensitivity, as well as to combat the higher UV index, humidity, and warmer climate in Asia. Central to our value is the uniqueness of skin type and concerns amongst individuals, Skin Need is formulated by a founder/cosmetic chemist to offer a collection of formulas that can be blended, mixed and matched to meet the ever-changing needs of the skin regardless of its conditions.

What’s the thing you wish more ppl would know about skincare?

With a myriad of intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting our skin’s behaviour expressed in a plethora of conditions we label as “concerns,” I wish more would acknowledge the uniqueness of an individual’s condition, and that the first step to seeking out solutions is looking inward to decipher your own skin type, how it affects the manifestations of your skin concerns, as well as the genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors that may contribute to these conditions, instead of simply basing product selection on recommendations made by friends, influencers, or advertisements – as even nuances in conditions can lead to dramatically different solutions.

What are some Hong Kong specific skincare tips you have to share?

With Hong Kong’s relatively high UV index paired with humidity and heat as well as heightened potential of sensitivity and sebum production, our routines shall focus more on humectants (Vitamin B5, Hyaluronic Acid) rather than overly nourishing emollients to keep the skin fresh and balanced without aggravating congestion, as well as dialling down on exfoliation during summer times as over-exfoliation may increase the skin’s risk of photosensitivity.

To soothe and calm sensitivity, it is recommended to use products such as ceramides, squalane and phospholipids that aid to fortify skin barrier, reducing trans-epidermal water loss while simultaneously enhancing the skin’s resistance against sensitizing agents.

Have you noticed a generational gap in different consumer demographics, say millennials vs Gen Z? What are the differences and why do you think that is?

I personally feel Gen Zs are headed in a great direction as they are more interested in finding out principles, ingredients, studies and efficacies of products rather being driven by traditional marketing efforts such as advertisements and celebrity endorsements.

I suspect is Gen Zs grew up with the internet that enables knowledge being accessible at the fingertips, and hence they are habitually prone to studying products online by analysing vast amount of information from testimonials to reviews, as opposed to simply being swayed by TV commercials in shopping malls. It was the way I got hooked onto my very first skincare products back in the early 90s as a teenager!

In this day and age, is it enough to simply have a cleanse-tone-moisturise routine? Why do you think that is?

In any modern day and age UV has been the biggest extrinsic factor that causes the skin to age – it’s just that its importance has not been effectively communicated until perhaps a decade ago. Hence a huge puzzle piece missing from the cleanse-tone-moisturize routine is UV protection. With that as the basic routine being said, the standard of healthy skin has also been raised as we identify causes and solutions to skin conditions such as sensitivity, acne, hyperpigmentation and loss of elasticity.

So, skincare routines have evolved to include anti-inflammatory agents, bactericidal ingredients, melanin-targeting formulas, as well as collagen stimulating, anti-oxidizing, anti-glycation, etc. products to enrich our routine depending on our individual beauty standards and what “concerns” we’d like to address. The challenge of such then would be managing expectations while simultaneously managing these so-called “concerns” – which are often times just natural progression of skin condition through life.

Also see: The best in beauty recognised at the 2025 #legend Beauty Awards

In your opinion, what is lacking in the skincare space these days?

In terms of product categories, I think the market is saturated with anything you can or cannot even imagine – and I think this is a good trend as it offers consumers more choices and prompts them to research about the good fit for their needs. When it comes to what’s lacking, I think it’s the message that the best solution really comes down to an individual’s unique conditions – such as skin type, how it affects our concerns are manifested, and what are the best options based on one’s lifestyle, preferences, and budget – so essentially it’s the communication on how to obtain personalized solutions.

A lot of brands promote a single or few hero product(s) purporting a one-size-fits-all potion in the interest of economics of scale, yet they underplay the fact that skin concerns associated with different skin types can take on drastically different manifestations that require differing solutions. So instead of celebrity and influencer driven marketing, I think it would be helpful to consumers if the space can be enriched with biologists, doctors, and chemists to share their views on skincare as well.

What are some skincare trends you are seeing? What are your thoughts on those?

Consumers are now more informed than ever craving ingredient and formulation knowledge, backstage developmental/manufacturing processes, and finding out whether brand values align with their own. I think this is a great trend driving brands to be more transparent as knowledge is power.

This direction has allowed for the flourishing of independent beauty brands to offer vegan, safe, non-animal tested, efficacy-driven, sustainable, value conscious…etc products in the market, while driving big players to rethink their formulas and strategies towards safer and more ethical personal care.

What’s it like running a skincare line in 2025?

Skin Need – Your Private Formula was established in 2017 via a distribution business model with product efficacy and education to beauty professionals as cornerstones to the brand’s success. I co-established Woke Up Like This with my sister Tawnia Lai and beauty influencer Jenn Lam in 2019, and subsequently Skin Need’s retail flagship store in 2025.

Since then, the space has become much more crowded driving brands to step-up in terms of innovative development, rigorous testing, quality products, as well as effective communications. These requirements – paired with the cut-throat retail environment in 2025 – make running a skincare line in 2025 more exhilarating than ever as only those with the passion to drive and quality to sustain will survive, let alone thrive.

Beauty and wellness have extended beyond potions and lotions. How do you see tech factoring into skincare routines?

From skin simulators to test hypoallergenicity to AI skin analysis to identify hidden skin problems, scientific advancements in isolating, replicating, and mass producing efficacious ingredients have also increased the precision and accessibility of skincare products. The translation of injectables and machineries originally designed to treat prevailing medical conditions to become effective treatments for aesthetic concerns have allowed for the reversal of what was deemed permanent to be eradicated or greatly minimized.

While I marvel at the weekly news of skincare discoveries and celebrate the possibility of more advanced solutions to come – I sometimes can’t help but wonder would this information overload confuse consumers, which brings me back to the previous question. For knowledge to be useful en masse, it must be paired with effective education and communication.

What are some of your personal beauty must-haves/must-dos?

Stepping into my 40’s my focus is definitely on combating aging factors. I’m obsessed with developing products using variants and derivatives of L-Ascorbic Acid and Retinol such as in encapsulation, exosomic, or liposomal forms and formulas.

I’m also into creating concoctions of these tried-and-true ingredients with promising substances such as Resveratrol and Bakuchiol. I think it is important for users to understand that there are multiple mechanisms that the skin can age. Therefore, anti-aging efforts must be through manifold pathways such as skincare, diet, physical fitness and positive mentality. All of which require knowledge, patience, and consistency.

What’s next for you and Skin Need?

We just opened our Skin Need shop in Times Square, Causeway Bay to offer complimentary and comprehensive AI skin analysis to users to help them understand their unique skin conditions as well as build their Skin Need skincare routine.

In addition, we provide bespoke facial treatments using cutting-edge technologies such as HIFU, RF, microcurrent, electromagnetic wave, LED…etc for a more holistic approach to skin conditioning. This helps our users achieve the optimal skin health possible, based on their unique behaviour and expectations.

Also see: Hong Kong treatments and products for holistic beauty