Korean American entrepreneur Alicia Yoon founded New York-based Peach & Lily to connect American consumers with Korean skincare knowledge, innovative products, and a more educational approach to caring for sensitive skin.
Editorial Note
Minority-Owned Business Spotlight is a recurring New To Education series highlighting businesses with publicly documented minority, immigrant, Indigenous, women, veteran, or historically underrepresented founder stories.
This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Inclusion does not constitute an endorsement, sponsorship, paid promotion, formal minority-business certification claim, medical recommendation, or recommendation of any company, product, treatment, or service.
Skincare products can cause irritation or allergic reactions, and cosmetic products are not substitutes for medical treatment. People experiencing persistent rashes, eczema, infections, pain, or other skin concerns should consult an appropriately qualified healthcare professional.
Before Korean skincare became a major part of the American beauty industry, many consumers had never heard terms such as double cleansing, essences, sheet masks, ampoules, skin barriers, or glass skin.
Alicia Yoon recognized that gap.
Yoon grew up between South Korea and the United States and experienced Korean beauty culture firsthand. She also struggled with severe eczema, which pushed her to study skincare more seriously rather than treating beauty as a purely cosmetic interest.
She trained at an esthetician school in Korea, later became a licensed esthetician in New York, and spent years learning how ingredients, routines, and skin conditions interact.
In 2012, Yoon founded Peach & Lily in New York. The company initially helped American customers discover Korean beauty products that were difficult to find in the United States. It later developed its own skincare lines, including Peach & Lily and the more accessibly priced Peach Slices.
What began as a bridge between two beauty markets became a nationally recognized skincare business with products sold through its website and major retailers such as Ulta Beauty.
Peach & Lily’s story provides an important lesson in cultural entrepreneurship.
Yoon did not simply import a trend from Korea. She translated an entire approach to skincare for customers who needed education, guidance, and confidence before they were willing to change their routines.
A Founder Shaped by Two Cultures
Yoon’s bicultural upbringing became one of Peach & Lily’s most important business advantages.
She understood the American consumer market, but she also understood the skincare culture developing in South Korea.
Korean beauty practices often emphasize prevention, hydration, gentle consistency, and maintaining the skin barrier rather than waiting for a problem to become severe. Product development in South Korea also became known for unusual textures, specialized ingredients, rapid innovation, and routines involving several targeted steps.
American customers were not necessarily familiar with those ideas when Peach & Lily began.
Many consumers were accustomed to stronger cleansers, harsh exfoliation, aggressive acne treatments, or the expectation that skincare should create an immediate physical sensation to prove that it was working.
Yoon had to explain a different philosophy.
Instead of presenting skincare as punishment for imperfections, Peach & Lily encouraged customers to understand what their skin needed and choose products accordingly.
This cross-cultural translation required more than fluency in two languages.
It required an understanding of how people shop, what they fear, which claims they trust, and how much information they need before trying something unfamiliar.
That ability to interpret one market for another became central to the company’s growth.
Personal Experience With Eczema Created a Deeper Mission
Yoon’s interest in skincare was shaped by her own struggle with eczema.
She has described experiencing severe dryness, itching, rashes, and sensitivity while growing up. The condition made product selection difficult and encouraged her to learn more about how skincare could support rather than overwhelm sensitive skin.
Her experience gave Peach & Lily a clear product-development standard.
A formula could not rely only on attractive packaging or a fashionable ingredient. It needed to be effective while remaining gentle enough for people whose skin might react easily.
This does not mean every Peach & Lily product will work for every person.
Skin conditions vary, and even ingredients considered gentle can cause irritation in some users.
The larger business lesson is that a founder’s personal problem can lead to a meaningful product standard.
Yoon understood the frustration of spending money on products that created discomfort or failed to address the problem. She also understood how confusing skincare language can become when every brand promises transformation.
That experience helped Peach & Lily position education and careful formulation as essential parts of the customer relationship.
Education Was Necessary Before Products Could Sell
When Peach & Lily launched, K-beauty was not yet a familiar retail category in the United States.
American consumers needed to understand why they might use an essence, how a sheet mask differed from a regular moisturizer, or why a gentle cleansing oil could be appropriate for oily skin.
Peach & Lily therefore had to operate as both a retailer and an educational platform.
The company published ingredient explanations, routine guidance, product recommendations, and information about different skin concerns. Yoon also appeared in interviews, demonstrations, retailer training, and beauty media to explain Korean skincare concepts.
This educational strategy reduced the uncertainty customers felt when encountering unfamiliar products.
A person is more likely to purchase something new when they understand what it does, when to use it, and how it fits into an existing routine.
That principle applies far beyond beauty.
Technology companies must teach customers how to use new tools. Financial companies must explain unfamiliar services. Food businesses introducing regional ingredients often need to provide recipes and cultural context.
When a product requires customers to change their habits, education becomes part of the product itself.
From Product Curator to Product Creator
Peach & Lily initially became known for selecting and introducing Korean beauty products to American consumers.
Curation created trust.
Customers relied on Yoon and her team to evaluate products before offering them through the platform. That reduced some of the risk involved in purchasing skincare from brands customers did not recognize.
Over time, the company moved from curating other brands to creating its own formulations.
That transition gave Peach & Lily more control over ingredients, performance, pricing, packaging, and the overall customer experience.
It also created greater responsibility.
When a retailer sells another company’s product, it can evaluate and market the item, but the manufacturer remains responsible for developing the formula.
A proprietary brand must oversee formulation, testing, manufacturing, regulatory compliance, packaging, inventory, claims, and quality control.
Creating products also requires patience.
A skincare formula may go through numerous versions before it achieves the desired texture, stability, performance, and user experience. Ingredients can interact in unexpected ways, and a formula that works in a laboratory must still survive manufacturing, shipping, storage, and regular customer use.
Peach & Lily’s move into proprietary products showed that the company wanted to become more than a marketplace for K-beauty.
It wanted to become a product-development business shaped by Korean skincare principles.
Glass Skin Became a Recognizable Business Concept
Peach & Lily became closely associated with the idea of “glass skin.”
The phrase describes skin that appears smooth, hydrated, clear, and reflective rather than covered by a particular style of makeup.
The concept became widely discussed on social media and throughout the beauty industry.
Peach & Lily developed products such as its Glass Skin Refining Serum and built educational content around hydration, texture, brightness, and maintaining a healthy-looking skin barrier.
From a branding perspective, glass skin was powerful because it transformed several complicated skincare goals into one memorable phrase.
Customers may not immediately understand discussions of humectants, barrier-supporting ingredients, uneven texture, or transepidermal water loss.
They can understand the image of skin that looks clear and luminous.
Strong branding often works through this type of simplification.
The phrase gives customers an outcome they can visualize while the company uses education to explain the routine and products connected to that outcome.
However, beauty brands must be careful not to turn a skincare ideal into an unrealistic standard.
Real skin has pores, texture, lines, discoloration, scars, and temporary changes. Lighting, makeup, filters, genetics, medical conditions, climate, and hormones can all influence appearance.
The most responsible interpretation of glass skin is not flawless skin.
It is a consistent routine focused on hydration and skin health rather than chasing an impossible surface.
Retail Expansion Brought Korean Skincare to More Customers
Peach & Lily eventually expanded into major retail channels, including Ulta Beauty.
Ulta currently carries dozens of Peach & Lily products, giving customers the ability to see products in stores, speak with beauty advisers, collect rewards, and purchase online for pickup or delivery.
Retail expansion can dramatically increase a beauty brand’s reach.
A customer who would never order from an unfamiliar independent website may be willing to try a product sold by a retailer they already trust.
The opportunity also creates operational pressure.
A brand must manufacture enough inventory to supply stores across multiple markets. Packaging must meet retailer requirements. Product information must remain consistent. Employees may need training so they can explain the brand accurately.
Larger retail distribution also makes forecasting more complicated.
Producing too little can lead to empty shelves and lost sales. Producing too much can leave a company with expensive unsold inventory.
Peach & Lily’s retail presence demonstrates that brand growth depends on logistics and operations as much as social-media popularity.
A product cannot become a national success if the company cannot manufacture, store, ship, and restock it consistently.
Peach Slices Expanded the Company’s Reach
The creation of Peach Slices allowed Yoon’s company to serve a broader range of customers.
Peach & Lily is positioned as a premium skincare line, while Peach Slices offers more accessibly priced products, including items focused on acne, redness, oil control, and everyday skin concerns.
A multi-brand strategy can help a company reach customers with different budgets without forcing one brand to represent every possible market position.
However, the brands must remain clearly differentiated.
Customers should understand why one product belongs to Peach & Lily and another belongs to Peach Slices. Otherwise, the company risks confusing shoppers or weakening the identity of both lines.
For students studying marketing, this provides a useful example of brand architecture.
A business can expand through new products, new stores, or entirely new brands.
Each approach has advantages.
Adding products to one brand builds on existing recognition. Creating a separate brand allows the company to target a different audience, price range, or retail environment without changing what the original brand represents.
Korean Innovation Became Globally Influential
Peach & Lily emerged during a period when Korean music, television, film, food, fashion, and beauty were becoming increasingly visible around the world.
K-beauty’s growth was not driven only by cultural popularity.
Korean skincare companies became known for product experimentation, specialized textures, ingredient research, packaging innovation, and rapid response to consumer demand.
Products such as cushion compacts, sheet masks, sleeping masks, essences, and hydrocolloid patches became much more familiar to American consumers as Korean beauty expanded.
Many large Western beauty companies later adopted similar product categories and language.
That influence demonstrates how innovation can move in several directions.
For years, global beauty standards were often presented as if Western companies introduced products and other markets followed.
K-beauty challenged that assumption.
South Korean companies, chemists, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers helped shape trends that international brands then adopted.
A Korean American-owned business such as Peach & Lily played a valuable role in making that innovation understandable and accessible in the United States.
Representation Must Include Business Leadership
The popularity of Korean culture does not automatically guarantee opportunity for Korean American entrepreneurs.
A company may profit from Korean ingredients, terminology, packaging, or beauty traditions without including Korean or Korean American people in ownership, leadership, or decision-making.
Peach & Lily provides a different model.
Yoon’s heritage, training, professional background, and personal experience are central to the company’s identity and strategy.
She is not merely serving as the public face for someone else’s interpretation of Korean skincare.
She built the business around her understanding of both Korean beauty culture and American consumer needs.
That distinction matters.
Cultural representation becomes more meaningful when people connected to the culture have the authority to determine how it is explained, marketed, and developed.
It also gives younger Korean Americans a visible example of entrepreneurship beyond traditional stereotypes.
Korean American business ownership includes restaurants, grocery stores, dry cleaners, technology companies, professional services, fashion, media, entertainment, beauty, and many other industries.
Peach & Lily demonstrates how cultural knowledge can support a modern consumer company with national reach.
What Future Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Peach & Lily
The first lesson is to become deeply knowledgeable about the problem being solved.
Yoon did not enter skincare because beauty appeared fashionable. She studied skin, trained as an esthetician, tested products, and spent years helping people understand their routines.
The second lesson is to educate before expecting customers to purchase.
Peach & Lily had to explain K-beauty concepts before many American consumers understood why they needed the products.
The third lesson is that bicultural experience can become a competitive advantage.
Yoon could identify innovation in Korea and communicate its value within the American market.
The fourth lesson is to build trust before expanding.
The company’s early work as a curator helped customers trust its judgment before it developed a larger proprietary product line.
Finally, strong branding must be supported by operations.
A memorable phrase such as glass skin may attract attention, but formulas, manufacturing, retailer relationships, customer service, and inventory management determine whether the company can maintain its growth.
Key Takeaways
Peach & Lily was founded in New York in 2012 by Korean American entrepreneur and licensed esthetician Alicia Yoon.
Yoon’s experience growing up between South Korea and the United States helped her translate Korean skincare practices for American consumers.
Her personal struggles with eczema influenced the company’s focus on products intended to deliver visible results while remaining gentle for sensitive skin.
Peach & Lily began by curating Korean beauty products and educating customers before expanding into proprietary skincare brands, including Peach & Lily and Peach Slices.
The company’s growth through major retailers demonstrates how cultural knowledge, technical education, customer trust, branding, and operational discipline can work together to build a national business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded Peach & Lily?
Peach & Lily was founded by Korean American entrepreneur and licensed esthetician Alicia Yoon.
Where is Peach & Lily based?
The company’s headquarters is in New York City.
When was the company founded?
Yoon founded Peach & Lily in 2012.
What does Peach & Lily sell?
The company sells cleansers, serums, moisturizers, masks, exfoliators, eye products, body care, and other skincare products. It also operates the Peach Slices brand.
What is glass skin?
Glass skin is a skincare term describing a smooth, clear, hydrated, and luminous appearance. It should not be interpreted as requiring flawless or poreless skin.
Is Peach & Lily formally certified as a minority-owned business?
Public sources document Yoon’s Korean heritage and leadership as the company’s founder and chief executive. This article does not claim that Peach & Lily holds a specific government minority-business certification.
Final Thoughts
Peach & Lily grew because Alicia Yoon understood that American customers needed more than access to Korean skincare products.
They needed someone to explain them.
Yoon turned her bicultural upbringing, esthetician training, business education, and personal experience with sensitive skin into a company that helped reshape how many Americans think about skincare.
The business did not simply follow K-beauty’s popularity.
It helped create the educational foundation that allowed the category to grow.
That may be the company’s most important entrepreneurial lesson.
When customers do not understand a new product, the answer is not always louder advertising.
Sometimes the strongest strategy is patient, credible education.
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Sources
Peach & Lily — About Us
https://www.peachandlily.com/pages/about-us
Peach & Lily — Alicia Yoon Discusses Her Korean Heritage and the Brand’s Origins
https://www.peachandlily.com/blogs/news/in-her-own-words-aapi-month-with-alicia-yoon
Peach & Lily — Contact and New York Headquarters
https://www.peachandlily.com/pages/contact-us
Gold House — Alicia Yoon
https://goldhouse.org/people/alicia-yoon/
Ulta Beauty — Peach & Lily Brand Page
https://www.ulta.com/brand/peach-lily
Columbia College Today — K-Beauty Queen Alicia Yoon
https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/winter16/features2
Time — Target Brings Alicia Yoon’s Korean Beauty Selection to More American Customers
https://time.com/4657130/alicia-yoon-korean-beauty-target/
Glamour — Alicia Yoon Discusses Her Skincare Routine and Philosophy
https://www.glamour.com/story/alicia-yoon-drops-her-skin-care-routin
