Confucius said, “I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.” Sounds a little metaphysical for a Thursday afternoon, but both Confucius, and Charlotte Cho, the founder of Soko Glam, want us to really feel it: Breath deeply, connect to the things that truly matter, and embrace our inner jeong.
Jeong, the Neo-Confucian concept, explains the emotional connection that makes you feel a sense of belonging to the people, places, and things that matter most. Cho found her's while living in Korea, the moment she discovered the benefits of deepening her skin-care routine with the double cleanse. She used the spiritual approach to formulate her own skin-care brand, called Then I Met You — completely separate from Soko Glam and the K-Beauty boilerplate — to give people that sense of balance and transformation every time they wash their face.
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"I created Then I Met You because I wanted to inspire everyone to go deeper, in all the things that matter," explains Cho. And as anyone with glowy, bouncy skin will tell you, a good skin-care regimen matters. In the attempt to get embrace my inner jeong, and go deeper with my own cleansing routine, I started using the just-launched Then I Met You hero product — The Cleansing Duo — which is a twofer, an oil-based cleansing balm and a water-based cleansing gel.
The first cleanser comes in a bright blue and yellow plastic jar, along with a guitar pick-shaped spatula for scooping. The consistency reminds me of a refrigerated tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! — it's a solid, but softens up immediately when you touch it. After scooping it out, you smear the yellow balm on your dry face and start rubbing it into your face. Watching my sooty mascara run down my cheeks as the cleanser emulsified was deeply satisfying, as was the fact that it didn't sting my sensitive eyes as I scrubbed it around into my lash line. The smell is a lot like Lemon Pledge, but in a good way: very clean and fresh.
After splashing off the balm, I applied the second step cleanser right away, rubbing a pea-sized drop to my wet face. The texture was gummier than I expected, more of a thick honey than your typical runny gel. It foamed a little as I rubbed it into my skin — not in an offensive way where I was taken over by bubbles, but just enough to tell it was working. Feeling squeaky clean after patting my face dry, I was expecting some redness and irritation, but I noticed my skin had the same kind of shiny, glowy brightness it gets after I do a really good glycolic peel.
I was so impressed, I only looked away from my mirror to glance at my phone. Which is when I realized I had just spent 10 minutes on my double cleanse — roughly 9 minutes longer than usual — and I was notably more zen. I guess you could say I was feeling the jeung.
Then I Met You The Cleansing Duo, $68, available at Then I Met You.