GLOWiD celebrates 7 years - a look back at the years gone by!

This week in January, GLOWiD celebrates 7 years! No one has missed that we celebrated daily with yummy deals, new kits and great content! We thought we would take the opportunity to look back in time and see what these 7 years have looked like on the journey. GLOWiD was founded in 2017, but let's go further back in time than that, because it was actually the case that an idea for the company had to be created, and it did three years earlier.

In 2013, we - Cecilia, Calle and our newborn daughter - moved down to Seoul, South Korea with Calle's job. I was on maternity leave with my 3 month old daughter at the time. Originally the plan was to spend 6 months there, but Calle's assignment was extended and we ended up spending a whole three years there.

During my stay, I became completely obsessed with Korean skincare, makeup and hair care. I got away from the squirrel wheel, changed environment, culture and perspective. A completely different calm appeared and there was plenty of time to think and reflect on my life and future. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to run my own company but at the time I didn't really know what…

Fast forward three years to the year 2017

At the same time that we moved home, baby number two was on the way and as my Korean products that I had brought home with me started to run out, I realized that they were not available in Sweden. I missed both the quality and the prices of the skincare products I was used to in Korea. I missed it so much that I started writing a business plan and started contacting the brands I used most frequently in Korea, including Dr Ceuracle (then called Leegeehaam). At the same time, I also brought in the Klairs brand. I had decided to create GLOWiD to bring K-beauty to Sweden myself!

Image: Dr Ceuracle Royal Vita Propolis 33 Ampoule - one of the very first products I tested in Korea and fell head over heels for. The question is where would GLOWiD have been if it weren't for this product, among others?

I started by contacting suppliers by sending them a solid business plan and presentation that was based heavily on my own personal experiences from my time in Korea and my extensive knowledge and understanding of these brands. When I got positive feedback from the suppliers, I started creating the website. I did everything myself at first in a tool called “text-talk”.
I also started an Instagram account for @glowid and bought the domain glowid and performed all administrative tasks during the times of day when my son was sleeping.

On launch day : I put all the time and energy I had into reaching out and growing my following on Instagram and Facebook by reaching out to the contacts I had at the time. It was a mix of family, old work colleagues, acquaintances, friends, etc. On launch day, five orders came in, which unsurprisingly weren't from people I knew!!
I packaged these first orders incredibly carefully and wrote a personal note. These are principles that we at GLOWiD still carry with us today, it should be packed with love, by real people and not robots, and handwritten notes. It's important to us!

"There were many times I stood rocking my son in a baby carrier while typing on my laptop."

We ask Cecilia:

"Was starting a business what you thought it would be? Or was it harder and more challenging than you thought?"
It was difficult and challenging and it required more working hours than I expected. The older my newborn son got, the harder it became, there were many times I stood rocking my son in a baby carrier and at the same time typing on my laptop. I worked as much as I could and managed while he slept. Many late evenings and nights for several years were required and I had not expected that even though I understood that it would require an extremely large amount of time and hard work to succeed as the competition is very high.

“ Can you tell me about something memorable from the first year?”
When I myself sat for 3 days and stuck labels on (it was during the National Day celebration and the sun was shining and everyone was celebrating outside) except for me who sat for hours and hours printing and sticking labels on each product. This was when the volumes were too small for the supplier to do this for free and I thought it was too expensive for GLOWiD to pay for this so I did it myself instead. I started at 7 am and finished around 10 pm and ate a sandwich for lunch in 5 minutes. Haha it's not sustainable in the long run to work like that but for a brand new company with an extremely small budget it is sometimes necessary.

"I started at 7am and finished around 10pm and ate a sandwich for lunch in 5 minutes."

In 2018, GLOWiD made its first hire, which felt absolutely amazing. Three new brands were launched - By Wishtrend , Hyggee and Make P:rem and I started toying with the idea of ​​developing products under our own brand GLOWiD. I decided to start with sheet masks and it turned out to take a long time to find the perfect formulations and be 100% satisfied (2 years).

In 2019, we moved into our first office, which was previously a so-called “collab workspace.” This office is now our “showroom,” but at the time it was both an office, warehouse, and packaging facility!

In 2020 we finally launched our own Glow & Plump Sheetmask ! It took two whole years to develop this product, but when you think about it, it was worth it as it is currently our best selling sheet mask with so many people using, reviewing and loving this sheet mask daily! Read more about it here!

Image: GLOWiD's own Glow & Plump Sheetmask, a mask that took two years to produce, but which is our absolute bestseller and favorite!

In 2021, our first advent calendar “ 25 days of glow ” was released and it sold out in a short 3 minutes! Everyone on the team was in shock at how it literally flew off the shelves!

Image: Our first advent calendar "25 days of glow" which sold out in three minutes!

In March, GLOWiD had 5 brands to offer, and this spring three more were launched: COSRX , I'm From and CLE Cosmetics ! And as the icing on the cake - two more sheet masks for GLOWiD were launched, Even & Clear and Aqua & Glow!

This year we also started producing our own Easter box!

In 2022, our first hair care brand was launched, namely La'dor! Korean hair care is like skin care, full of beneficial ingredients that we recognize, but above all, k-beauty hair care focuses on the scalp! A lot of time was spent educating our customers on all the great things about this new product category, and it became a hit. Not to mention how trendy hair care has become in recent years, this was really the right card to play!

Of course, after last year's success, we launched another advent calendar, " The Neccessary" , which was available for two days before it sold out.

Image: We launched the hair care brand "La'dor" which focuses on the scalp and offers innovative hair care products with a salon feel at home. Wonder Balm is one of our customers' absolute favorites!

In 2023, the latest addition to the brand, Saturday Skin, was launched. Two birds with one stone were killed when we chose to launch on our birthday, but what a party! There was glow pong games, mingling, cake and a fish pond in true GLOWiD spirit!

In the spring we organized our very first Pop-Up in Stockholm which was a success. “ Pop-Up Glow Cart ” looked like a small portable ice cream kiosk from a distance, but if you got close you could see that we served sunscreen! The queue was long at Stureplan, so many Glow Pro's visited us during these two days in May that we were here and it was a day we will never forget!

Photos: Our Pop-Up Glow Cart that looked like an ice cream kiosk but we served our incredible sun protection products!

Some of our colleagues went on a business trip to Seoul to visit all of our suppliers. It was a fast-paced day with lots of meetings but also memorable cultural experiences! These trips are so valuable to us, even though we have daily contact with our colleagues in Seoul, it is something completely different to get there and meet physically and truly be surrounded by everything that is K-beauty!

Pictures: Our colleagues Kristina, Sofia and Lisa dressed in traditional Korean clothing called "Hanbok". This activity was organized by our colleagues at Klairs during the Seoul trip! 😍 There was also plenty of K-beauty shopping!

Another major event was that we started a three-month collaboration with the lash and brow experts at Rapide . We launched our own 20-minute K-beauty inspired facial called “ GLOWiD x Rapide Limited Edition Treatment” which included lots of moisture, massage, relaxation and of course glow!

Pictures: Our treatment could be combined with any lash or brow treatment at Rapide for three months. Unfortunately, the collaboration is over now, but you can read more about it here!

At the end of the year, another Christmas calendar, “The Full Size Surprise Calendar,” was launched, which also sold out – can you guess? 3 minutes again! There was an outcry and many happy but also some disappointed customers who did not have time to get their hands on the product. We knew it would sell out and had an ace up our sleeve the whole time, to launch another calendar, “ The Mini Size Surprise Calendar,” with mini products, which sold out in half a day.

Image: The Full Size Surprise Calendar which also sold out in a mere three minutes!

Year 2024 and beyond. This is the year we started to expand into the Nordics and we can now offer delivery to Norway, Finland and Denmark. We are also in a phase where we will finally launch a whole line within our own brand! During these 7 years, we have received so much demand and knowledge about what our customers like and at the same time we have great insight into the latest technology and innovations from Korea so we see the perfect match to be able to use Korean technology and offer the ingredients and formulations our customers demand.

We hope to continue organizing and planning more customer meetings such as Pop-ups, masterclasses, competitions, events etc. in more cities than Stockholm. We hope and believe that you who are reading this want to continue to be a part of GLOWiD's journey, because it has only just begun!

Thank you for being a customer of ours at GLOWiD, we would be nothing without our fantastic customers who give us valuable feedback every day and shower us with love and kind words. Do you have suggestions on how we can become even better or perhaps wishes for what you would like to see from us in the future? Then you are most welcome to email us at info@glowid.se !

We look forward to this year and all the years ahead! 💖💖

Hugs to the entire GLOWiD team! ✨