Tina Chen Craig Is Pushing the Limits of Skin Care With U Beauty
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In ELLE.com’s series Office Hours, we ask people in powerful positions to take us through their first jobs, worst jobs, and everything in between. This month, we spoke to Tina Chen Craig, the founder of U Beauty. Before she began the high-tech skin care brand in 2019, she had a diverse array of jobs, including being a host for MTV Asia and co-founding the cult fashion blog Bag Snob. But the through line in her career has been her commitment to perfection, and it was no different when she was developing U Beauty’s first fragrance, Proem. “Judging by the number of glass bottles we had, we went through hundreds and hundreds of samples,” Chen Craig says. “Everyone wanted to kill me.” Below, she spills the details about her unique career journey, her grandmother’s fierce commitment to beauty, and why she created Proem, which launches today.
My first job
My first official job, other than babysitting, was at Sam Goody. I think I was 13 and a half [years old]. I wanted to have a red swimsuit, and everyone in my conservative Chinese family told me no. I think it was my grandmother who said, “If you want it so badly, get a job, and buy it yourself.” I hated that answer. So I asked my aunt to drive me to Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland, and I went store to store. I was so young—no one was going to hire me. They kept saying no. And I hate being told no! There are people who barely know me, who are like, “Nobody says no to Tina. Just say yes. It’s easier.” I didn’t even have a resume.
So I walked into Sam Goody, and I talked to the manager. She asked me a few questions, and she said, “I’m just going to hire you, because every other person that’s come in here has been high or dumb.” I was her pet. I would snitch on everybody. I loved music, so it was so much fun, and I earned enough money to buy the swimsuit. I remember feeling so powerful, because it wasn’t like babysitting. It was real money that came in a paycheck. They deducted taxes, and I had to hand it to someone to deposit for me, and I would look at my little bank account. I got my first taste of financial freedom, and I haven’t stopped working since.
My worst job
I got a gig as a telemarketer when I was 18 or 19, and I can’t remember what I had to sell—I think it was insurance or something. Again, I hate being told no. So I hated the job. I’d sit at a desk in an office with other people, because they didn’t allow people to work from home. I remember I took the job because they paid so much. It was about $7 an hour, which was double the minimum wage, because you would get hung up on or yelled at a lot. It was miserable. I quit after two weeks.
How I became a host on MTV
I was living in Taiwan after I graduated from the University of Southern California. I spoke English as well as I spoke Chinese. I was at lunch, and I was eating and talking. My friend’s godmother was a producer, and she was like, “Can you talk and eat at the same time, the way you’re doing it now, but in front of the camera?” And I was like, “Sure.” She was casting for a food travel show, and she told me that I would just be traveling around the world and eating. It was a dream job, so I said yes.
While I was doing that, MTV Asia was starting up, and someone saw me on that food show and was like, “Wow, let’s call this girl.” They contacted me and asked for an audition. I knew all about classic rock, so I nailed it. They hired me on the spot. I ended up hosting for Aqua when they came to launch “Barbie Girl” in 1997. And the Spice Girls’s first world tour started in Tokyo, and Taipei was the second stop, so I hosted them there. Nobody knew who they were at the time. I liked Victoria Beckham, and I got along with Baby Spice really well.
Why I started Bag Snob
I fell in love, moved to Texas, and found myself married with a newborn in 2005. I didn’t want to hire a nanny—I was convinced someone was going to steal or drop my baby—but I wanted to work.
My best friend and I both went to USC, and we became friends because of designer bags. Her husband called us bag snobs. He’s a software engineer, and he was telling me one night to stop calling their house. He said, “You leave 20-minute messages. Why don’t you guys start a blog? It’ll be a journal for the two of you to talk to each other. And maybe you’ll make some money. I’ll put up some ads.” And so we started the blog and called it Bag Snob. We started with $20: $10 for the name and $10 for the website. It made $400 the first month. Eventually, there was a time when Bag Snob wielded so much power that even if I bashed the bag, [the brand] didn’t care, because it would get attention and sell.
The reason I’ve always loved beauty
Beauty Snob started about six months after Bag Snob. I don’t think people knew that Beauty Snob was my true passion. Bags and beauty are the great equalizers; anyone can buy a bag, and anyone can buy beauty. But beauty was always my obsession, because our whole family is Shanghainese. It was always like, “If you have great skin, you have confidence when you walk in a room, and you can do anything.” I remember I would save my money to buy the La Prairie eye serum. When I was 18, people were buying contour sticks from MAC, and I was buying that too.
When La Prairie read our story on Beauty Snob, they contacted me, and I started traveling with them, teaching master classes. So beauty is always my thing, and people and brands have come to me. I launched Charlotte Tilbury in Dallas. I launched Augustinus Bader online. I worked with Clé de Peau as an ambassador.
How U Beauty was born
I had a very complicated skin care routine, and I just knew there had to be a better way. I didn’t understand how we put a man on the moon in 1969, but we couldn’t make a retinol that wouldn’t give me rosacea. I was so frustrated with the beauty industry.
That’s when I went to dinner with my friend Katie Borghese and her husband, Skip. They had been in the private labeling business for 20 years, and none of the brands wanted to spend money on the formulation. They wanted to spend money on very beautiful, wasteful packages. She was frustrated with that, and she told me about the medical-grade lab in Italy that she’d been working with. She asked if I wanted to look at the Siren capsule technology that they had been trying to develop for the last seven years. She said, “It’s really unique, and it’s all about adapting to everyone’s skin. It’s about how to deliver the active ingredients only where they need to be.”
I was so fascinated by it, and I met with the Italians. I told them all my dream products, and they sent me the first sample, which was the Resurfacing Compound. I then flew to Paris for fashion week. I started using it on Tuesday, and by the Dior show on Friday, my skin had changed. Everyone was looking like crap, because it was the end of fashion month, and they were like, “You always have great skin, but what are you doing now?” I was having drinks with Candice Swanepoel, and she asked, “Why is your skin glowing?” So I called Katie, and I said, “Let’s do it.”
Our biggest challenge
That would probably be butting heads with my biochemists and our VP. I don’t have a science background. I’d be like, “Why can’t you bioengineer similar characteristics as the immortal jellyfish? Why can’t I have invisible shapewear for my arm? Why can’t I have 10 things in one bottle that can not only peel or resurface, but then afterwards moisturize? Why do I have to have 10 different steps for everything that I want to do?” Katie always says, “‘Why’ is Tina’s favorite word.” I’m like a 3-year-old. When I worked with the scientists, they’d tell me, “What you’re asking for is impossible.” And I’d tell them to keep trying.
My everyday skin care routine
It’s very simple compared to my old 15-step routine. I tell everyone my four Cs: cleanse, compound, cream, and cover. I cleanse with the Mantle Skin Conditioning Wash, apply the Resurfacing Compound, which is eight serums in one, and go in with face and eye creams. Finally, I cover with the Super Intensive Face Oil or the Barrier Bioactive Treatment in the evenings and the Multimodal Defender Broad Spectrum SPF 30 in the mornings.
Why U Beauty is launching a fragrance
I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I was born in Taiwan to Chinese immigrant parents, and the Taiwanese called us outsiders. And when I moved to America, I was an outsider again. I think a lot of people feel the same way, and a fragrance really allows you to feel confident—that you belong no matter where you go. I wanted to capture an entire fragrance wardrobe in one bottle and allow people to introduce themselves and all of their lived experiences in that quick moment when you first meet someone.
Proem Eau de Parfum
My best beauty memories
My first beauty memory is my grandma force-feeding me a big plate of chicken butt and fish eyeballs when I was 3 or 4 years old. I kept saying, “No, no, no.” My grandma would say, “Make you pretty.” And I was very vain. Since I was born, I always had to be pretty.
But one of my favorite beauty memories happened much later. After my grandmother had a mini stroke, and we were in the ambulance, I saw that her little hand was clenched. I was like, “Oh my God. You don’t have mobility. Can you move your fingers?” And she was like, “You’re an idiot. Of course I can move my fingers.” She was holding her red Chanel lipstick. “Don’t let me die ugly,” she said. She was very dramatic. I had to put her lipstick on her in the ambulance. I will never forget that for the rest of my life.
Mantle Skin Conditioning Wash
Resurfacing Compound
The Super Hydrator
The Return Eye Concentrate
Super Intensive Face Oil
Barrier Bioactive Treatment
Multimodal Defender SPF 30
The Plasma Tinted Lip Compound
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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