FROM CONCERT PIANIST TO BEAUTY FOUNDER: ANGELA JIA KIM ON THE RITUALS BEHIND SAVOR BEAUTY
Angela Jia Kim’s path to skincare was anything but conventional.
Before founding Savor Beauty, Kim was a concert pianist. Her transition into the beauty industry began after a lotion left her covered in hives before a performance. Rather than accepting the reaction and moving on, she began researching ingredients and formulating skincare herself, eventually creating products in her Manhattan kitchen. What began as a personal solution grew into Savor Beauty, the New York-made Korean skincare brand and facial spa founded by Kim.
The ideas behind Savor Beauty, however, took shape much earlier through the beauty rituals Kim experienced growing up in a Korean family.
Kim watched her mother layer hydrating products, care for her skin barrier, and practice facial massage. Her mother’s approach to beauty became an early influence, as did the skincare her aunts sent from Seoul. Kim remembers playing with her mother’s creams, which featured ingredients such as gold and silkworm cocoons.
Savor Beauty grew from Kim’s desire to bring those Korean beauty traditions into her own life in New York. The brand’s numbered five-step system was designed to make an elaborate skincare ritual more approachable for a modern lifestyle, emphasizing cleansing, hydration, treatment, layering, and protection.
Kim has since expanded that philosophy beyond skincare. She is also the author of “Radical Radiance: 12 Weeks of Self-Love Rituals to Manifest Abundance, Beauty, and Joy,” published by St. Martin’s Press. The book draws on her Korean beauty heritage and her experiences as a concert pianist and founder of Savor Beauty.
The idea of ritual runs through both her work in beauty and her broader approach to self-care.
At Savor Beauty, the process begins with thorough cleansing and continues through hydration and the thoughtful layering of skincare. Facial massage is another integral part of the experience, reflecting the Korean beauty traditions Kim grew up with and later developed into Savor Sculpt™ Korean Massage for the brand’s professional treatments.
For Kim, these practices are not about constantly chasing the next beauty trend. They are about consistency—creating rituals that can become a meaningful part of everyday life.
The products tell that story, too. The Truffle Face Cream is one of Savor Beauty’s signature offerings, while the Pomegranate Peptide Eye Serum brings targeted eye care into the ritual. Radiance Sun Milk SPF 50+ makes daily sun protection part of the practice. Rather than centering a single hero product or promising a one-step solution, the collection reflects Savor Beauty’s emphasis on skincare as a complete and repeatable ritual.
That connection between heritage and place remains central to the brand. Kim did not discover Korean beauty as a global trend; she grew up surrounded by its rituals. As Korean skincare has become increasingly influential around the world, Savor Beauty represents Kim’s personal interpretation of the traditions that shaped her—developed and made in New York.
Her background as a pianist also continues to inform the way she approaches her work. Kim has spoken about learning to identify patterns and solutions while tackling complicated pieces of music, as well as the importance of practicing the smallest passages until they were right. She brought that same discipline and attention to detail to building Savor Beauty.
Although music and skincare may appear to occupy entirely different worlds, both depend on repetition, precision, and the cumulative power of practice. In Kim’s work, ritual becomes the bridge between them: a series of small, intentional actions that gradually produce something greater than the individual steps.
What began with an unexpected reaction to a lotion ultimately led Kim somewhere she never anticipated—from the concert stage to a Manhattan kitchen, and from there to creating a skincare brand rooted in both Korean heritage and New York life.
Today, her work brings together the different parts of that journey: Korean beauty traditions, New York-made skincare, professional facial treatments, and a broader philosophy of self-care and radiance.
For Savor Beauty, skincare is more than a collection of products. It is a ritual—practiced with intention and returned to consistently. For Kim, that may be the most lasting connection between beauty and the life she has built: the belief that small rituals, repeated over time, can become something much bigger.
