Bingsoo is Korea’s undisputed dessert. Sweet and creamy, it’s often paired with condensed milk, chocolate or espresso for a rich taste, or with strawberries and melon for a fruity, refreshing taste.
Bingsoo is an essential part of Korean cuisine and the inspiration for Glow Recipe’s new Glass Balm collection.
Glow Recipe co-founders Christine Chang and Sarah Lee wanted their first tinted lip balm to be as juicy and watery as Bingsoo. “Shaved ice feels like ice with a hint of transparency—that sheen that comes through the ice,” says Lee.
So as a lip balm, it delivers a hint of color with a shimmery, high-shine texture that’s non-sticky, comfortable, and silky to the touch.
What sets this lip balm apart from others on the market is its ingredients; unlike its competitors, it’s lip care first, not color second. It primarily addresses lips’ hydration levels via hyaluronic acid microspheres: “Imagine that on the surface of your lips, once you put on lip gloss, there are tons of little balls rolling across the surface of your lips filling in [dry] gaps,” Lee explains.
“[It] creates this nice, plump volume, but the essence of it is just providing more hydration and penetrating into the lip skin layer with the hyaluronic acid.” She likens the microspheres to “moisture magnets,” holding water underneath lips, a process that ensures hours of hydration and shine. (12 hours, to be specific, according to the brand’s clinical trials.) That hydration is also amplified with the addition of glycerin.
“Food was never the flavoring for Glow [Recipe], it was always an antioxidant-rich fruit active, so all the fruits here, including raspberry extract and kakadu plum (which is rich in vitamin C), are meant to play some role in the formula,” Chang explains.
These fruit extracts are found throughout the formula and shades. For example, Watermelon Bingsoo is a soft pink that draws on watermelon extract, while Blackberry Bingsoo is a reddish hue that taps into the antioxidant properties of blackberry extract.
“The ingredients are to make sure you get the antioxidant benefits because you’re using it all day, and antioxidants are essential for neutralizing free radical activity on the skin,” says Chang. The range also features a stunning cherry red hue, Strawberry Bingsoo, and a versatile sheer lip gloss, Ice Bingsoo.
The colours themselves are meant to be buildable, like the Dewy Flush blush that launched earlier this year. “If you want more colour, you can,” explains Lee. The team wanted users to be able to use it flexibly; to get saturated colour, but also to create a radiant look.
“But what we’re saying is that even if you’re not good at makeup, you can still enjoy it and look amazing — both natural and sophisticated. If you like to wear heavy makeup, just apply more layers to achieve the look you want.”