Sephora’s Latest Skincare Sellout Is Watermelon Pink and Perfect

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If it feels like Sephora has been stocking a lot of winning skincare products lately, you’re not imagining it. First, there was the gel cream category generally, and Tatcha’s Water Cream specifically. Then came Biossance Squalane Eye Gel. This week’s sellout frenzy has also been caused by a newcomer.

Glow Recipe, the Korean beauty e-commerce site, just released two products under its eponymous label: Blueberry Bounce Gentle Cleanser ($34) and Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask ($45). The latter sold out at Sephora.com within a week of launching there, and has now sold out twice on Glow Recipe’s own site. It’s currently unavailable at both places, and the founders estimate that there’s about a 5,000-person waitlist. They’re hopeful that new stock will arrive this week.

So what’s the big deal? Okay — first of all, just look at this thing. Besides the obvious you-know-what pink, this jar is pretty special. It’s made of solid, hefty, comforting asymmetric glass, so I was pretty smitten with the press sample I received before I even opened the jar. Upon opening it, you’re greeted with a hint of chic Jolly Rancher watermelon scent. The magic really happens when you dip into it, though.

This is a sleeping mask, a very common Korean skincare category that usually has a gel cream consistency and is loaded with hydrators and active ingredients — it’s basically a mask you don’t wash off. It’s used as the final step in your nighttime skincare routine and supposedly locks in all the other stuff you put on your skin.

This one has a fantastic ingredient list, which includes hyaluronic acid for attracting moisture, glycolic and lactic acids for some mild resurfacing, and tons of plant extracts. (If you have sensitive skin, you might want to treat it like a regular mask and wear it for 10 to 15 minutes and then wash it off, since it contains exfoliating acids that could be rough on some skin types.) It also has a fun consistency that reminds me of gooey caramel that melts into your skin without any residue.

Christine Chang, a Glow Recipe co-founder, told me that her team was inspired to make this product because her mother used to put watermelon rinds on her skin to soothe it when she was a kid. This is a pretty perfect interpretation of food reimagined as skincare.

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