Industry: Beauty and Cosmetic Products

Founded: 2015

Sabbatical Beauty was started by Adeline Koh, Ph.D., who entered the beauty product scene from academia, where she teaches the humanities and technology. She started Sabbatical Beauty while on academic sabbatical because she was frustrated with the beauty products on the market. Many generic products loudly proclaim their "active" ingredients on their packaging, but these actives only make up a tiny percentage of ingredients. Inspired by the DIY beauty scene, she decided to start making her own skincare, and shared her results with her friends. Resoundingly her friends reported that her products achieved amazing results very quickly: diminishing redness, helping acne, filling in fine lines and wrinkles.

After a lot of thought and experimentation, she decided that she wanted to share Sabbatical Beauty with others as well. Sabbatical Beauty's goal is to share with its users the experience of being on sabbatical: happy, relaxed and refreshed. 

Sabbatical Beauty products are small-batch handcrafted and not made in a commercial lab. They are filled with much more active ingredients than are in regular commercial products, and they work fast. This quick effect is due to the high concentration of actives. Many of the products are influenced from trends in Korean beauty, such as Camellia Japonica oil, a traditional beauty oil in East Asia used to calm and soothe skin and fill in wrinkles and fine lines. The Camellia flower is pictured as the first image on the front page of the website. 

Sabbatical Beauty hopes to address needs of consumers disillusioned by big brand beauty products by delivering products with the maximum amount of actives and minimal filler for quick results and efficacy.