“As most French women, her beauty routine was simple and consistent. To this day, if I go to bed without cleansing my face, I can hear her say ‘Make sure your skin is clean and well hydrated before you go to bed…’ She was all about oils, serums, and massaging the Funny hit row wwe autographed faces 2023 shirt in other words I will buy this skin to stimulate firmness. After my first facial with her esthéticienne when I was young, they became a monthly mother-daughter rendez-vous. Odacité is so inspired by her beauty rituals, from products for treatments to gua sha tools for skin stimulation. She was also an advocate of bare skin and insisted that ‘The best look is bare skin with a touch of red lipstick and mascara! Skincare should be your makeup, the rest is accessories.’ Maman believed that beautiful skin is also fed from inside, with good food and a glass of red wine! Like her, I am all about healthy and glowing bare skin. I agree with her ‘good food’ approach. Like hers, my ‘good food’ is always homemade and never processed, yet quite different with its ingredients. Maman’s was very French with meat, cream, cheese, and bread. Mine is dairy free and plant-based, but the glass of red wine still stands!”
Vicky Tsai with her mother, Sue-Jen TsaiPhoto: Courtesy of Vicky Tsai“Growing up, I would watch transfixed as my mom went through her evening skin-care ritual. Like clockwork after dinner, she would stand in front of her bathroom sink and go through the Funny hit row wwe autographed faces 2023 shirt in other words I will buy this motions of each step meticulously, using various washcloths, face washes, and doing a facial massage including her neck, back of the neck, and around the ears. She’d emerge with skin that was so pristine I can only describe it as the skin-care equivalent of your teeth after a cleaning at the dentist’s office. Whenever my mom cooked rice, she would tell me about how, growing up in Taiwan, they would save the milky water from the first wash of rice and later use it to wash their skin and hair. She swore that the ingredients in that milky water left skin and hair softer, brighter, and smoother with each use. It was the beginning of my understanding that ingredients that are good for the body are good for the skin. The woman was—and still is—the cleansing queen, and to this day, washing my face is one of my favorite things to do. Maybe it’s why Tatcha exists. In high school, my mother opened a beauty boutique and I spent a lot of my free time working with her there. As one of the only minorities in my school, I was not conventionally pretty by Texas beauty queen standards in the ’90s, so I loved disappearing into her makeup heaven. But my mother always encouraged me to focus on having a beautiful mind and a beautiful heart as a way of feeling beautiful in my skin. I’m so glad she did. I try to teach my daughter the same thing—that beauty begins in the heart and the mind.”