Photo: Tatcha
Vicky Tsai, founder ofTatcha, didn’t set out to conquer the beauty world. She was actually on the business track — trading credit derivatives on Wall Street — when the unthinkable occurred. Tsai and her now-husband were working in their office at 4 World Financial Center in N.Y.C. on the morning of 9/11. Her experience that day caused her to rethink her life and career.
“I was 21 at the time and my husband was too. We felt really grateful coming out of that and I started questioning how to have purpose and impact in my work,” Tsai, who is based in San Francisco, tells PEOPLE. “That experience made me realize that if I’m going to spend the waking hours of my life, which I’m grateful for, working, then I need to find a way to have meaning in my work.”
Tsai quit her corporate job and started working for the nonprofit Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, which helps provide continued education and career support to young people from underserved communities.
During a work trip to Japan, she happened upon products that finally didn’t irritate her inflamed skin, and she began thinking about the impact beauty ingredients have on the body. It was also around this time that Tsai was thinking about starting a family, and she became even more aware of what she was putting on her skin.
Tsai tried to find the ingredients that helped heal her skin in Japan — green tea, rice and seaweed — but they weren’t as prevalent in the U.S., so she returned to Japan. While in Kyoto, she connected with a modern-day geisha who taught her about their generations-old skin care regimens.
“I wanted to create an opportunity for other people to tap into this world because it was certainly healing me,” says Tsai, whose personal go-to products include theCamellia Cleansing OilandRice Polish. “And I hoped it could help other people.”
The theme of helping others is a thread that has run deep through her company over the past 10 years.
After some research, Tsai partnered withRoom to Read, a non-profit organization that aims to improve literacy and gender equality in education in the developing world.
“Girls’ education was an area we thought we could have an impact on directly through product sales,” Tsai says. She has since traveled with the organization and seen first-hand the powerful effect it has on low-income and developing communities.
Vicky Tsai with Room to Read.Tatcha
“If you educate a generation of girls, they can lift an entire community,” Tsai continues. “Educated girls become educated mothers with educated children and they have lower infant mortality rates and better family health. Educating children, especially girls, is one of the most efficient ways that we can actually effect the disparity that’s happening in the world.”
Tsai is proud to say that for every product purchased, Tatcha donates to Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program. “Every time our clients are giving themselves or a friend the gift of beauty, they are personally changing the lives of very real girls around the world,” she adds.
Room to Read.
And just as her own daughter was top of mind when Tsai first started Tatcha, she’s still inspiring her as she evolves both professionally and personally.
“My daughter just turned 10 and she asked me when she can get a phone, and I was like, “When you’re 30,’ ” Tsai recalls. “And then I had to sit with myself and be like, ‘Okay, why did you have that very strong reaction?’ And I realized that it’s because of social media. It’s one thing to look at a celebrity in a magazine because you know that there’s a styling team, there’s lighting, there’s some Photoshop. But to see other people your age on Instagram or Snapchat and they all look so great and everything is just so great, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that somehow you’re not enough.”
“It made me really reflect as an individual, as a role model for other women and as a beauty company, what goal are we playing in all of this?” she adds. “I don’t think it’s okay for people in my position to be thoughtless about how we put out messaging and imagery because it affects people, especially little girls.”
So Tsai wiped her Instagram account clean and posted one new photo: a snap of her with a group of young girls benefiting from Room to Read.
“I’m going to be mindful about what I put out there,” she says. “I don’t want to put out images of people who are only perfect. We have to always ask the question, ‘Are we helping or hurting?’ I think that companies have a moral responsibility to make a difference in whatever way that they are equipped to do.”
source: people.com
