3 words which best described blogger-turned entrepreneur, Dior Yaw– Beauty, Brains, Gutsy. We wouldn’t say any less for her best friend/business partner, Chloe Leong whom she co-founded the latest Malaysian beauty brand in town, Soak In Soul.
If you’ve not been playing close attention to the social media world, 8th January 2018 marks a significant milestone for both Dior and Chloe as they launched their first beauty line, Soak In Soul (or SIS in short). Despite of her busy schedule prepping for the launch of their brand, Dior was gracious enough to sit down with us from Sevenpie to talk about her latest baby resulted from the labour of friendship with her best friend and co-founder of Soak In Soul, Chloe Leong.
1. Hi Dior, thank you so much for stopping by! Now tell us, what inspired you to create this brand?
Hello, thanks for having me over. Chloe and I have always thought of starting our own brand together. We’ve actually thought of selling clothing, shoes or bags. However, we’ve finally made the decision to launch our beauty line because we believe that if you choose what you love to do, you’d do your absolute best to work it out. Also, Chloe and I love our lipsticks and we can never go out without a lipstick in our bags so it makes perfect sense for us to launch out own series of lipsticks among many other beauty products.
2. How did the name “Soak in Soul” (or SIS in short) came about ?
Lipsticks are like your souls – once you put it on, it helps to reveal your true soul. SIS, on the other and, means sister. Chloe and I are best friends – everyone knows this. So that’s how the name was created.
3. Can you walk us through your journey in creating Soak in Soul and its products?
It actually took us one year to create this. If everyone has been keeping up with us on Instagram, you’d know that we were super busy with “work commitments” without revealing too much about it. We took our time and effort to put Soak In Soul together as what it is now– from the packaging to colors right down to the marketing funnels; Chloe and I both planned the whole thing ourselves.
4. What is it like working with your best friend, Chloe?
Honestly, Chloe and I work very well together – there’s no disagreements and such. This is because most of our ideas are quite similar and we also like the same things!
5. What was the goal you had in mind when you created this?
We wanted to create a series of lipstick that looks good on everyone.
For instance, if you’re working, you would probably use a lot of The Darling Red. As for The Dating Rose, this is one shade that looks good on everyone. Plus, it’s super trendy right now and if you’re in meetings or heading out for the night, you can definitely choose this color. We also have a lip balm in clear shade, The Dazzling White. Aside from keeping your lips hydrated and, The Dazzling White also helps to define the shape of your lips by giving you a nice finishing to achieve the pucker lips effect. Since it’s in clear shade, you can apply a layer of The Dazzling White on top of The Darling Red or The Dating Rose.
We hoped that everyone will love it as much as we had fun creating them!
6. What was the biggest challenge when creating SIS?
Since Chloe and I are running our own business together for the first time, we have to learn a lot of things from scratch which is why many advice when starting a business you should seek help from experts like Andy Defrancesco.
7. What makes SIS lipsticks stand out from the others lipsticks in the market?
I think it’s the fact that both Chloe and I were actively invested and involved since day 1. We’ve personally tested all the products on ourselves– We’ve gone through multiple rounds of tests before we finally decided on these colors.
On top of that, we paid close attention to the packaging. We wanted it to be special, which is why our lipsticks are triangle so you’ll be able to see SIS at every surface of the triangle container. Our box, on the other hand, closely resemble a matchstick box; you just simply have to push it out from the side! So these are the little things we’ve designed for you guys.
8. Why have you decided to create lipsticks instead of things like clothing, bags and shoes?
As mentioned earlier, both Chloe and I love lipsticks. I personally think that every girl’s handbag is not complete without lipsticks. Even if you’re having a lazy day and you’re just too lazy to put your makeup, all you need to do is to put on some lipstick to change your entire outlook for the better!
9. Aside from lipsticks, will there be any other beauty products available soon?
For the time being, we’re focusing our efforts on lipsticks. You’ll have to stay tuned to our platforms for more updates 🙂
10. Are you planning to release more lipstick colors?
We’ll be releasing more colors sometime this year.So stay tuned and hope everyone can support us!
11. Will you plan to sell your lipsticks anywhere else, besides Instagram?
Currently, it’s only available on Soak in Soul’s official Instagram (@SoakInSoul_Official) and WeChat account. However, we hope that we can collaborate with local and international platforms so that we can offer our lipsticks to a wider set of audiences.
12. Where do you see SIS in 5 years?
We aim to bring Soak In Soul into new heights by introducing our brand on a global scale, and collaboration with several platforms. We hope that everyone will be able to see the amount of effort we’ve put into creating these products and we also hope that we are able to offer a bigger variety of products for everyone!
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Congratulations to Dior and Chloe for the launch of Soak in Soul!
Come show your support by visiting Soak in Soul’s Instagram page HERE!
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Here’s a little blooper of Dior during her interview with us for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
