We recently connected with Josephine Ung and have shared our conversation below.

Josephine, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Vacance was born during a time in my career when I was taking a break, so it felt right to design the brand around the idea of everyone deserving a break and enjoying the small moments of joy. I want to preface that I was already a user of cuticle oil, but often found myself mixing my own oils and looking for different ingredients. I thought back to my childhood and remembered that many of my family’s sick day recipes and soups for inflammation revolved around herbal ingredients like goji berries or bamboo shoots, for example. So I realized: how about an Asian-inspired hand care brand?

There were a number of steps I had to take to bring this to life:

Branding: Since the concept was around taking a break, I wanted the visual branding to feel like you were on vacation. I brought in colors of luscious greens and warm sunsets. The voice of the brand should feel more casual on vacation, so the copywriting was meant to be a little fun and a little cheeky — like you were talking to a good friend.

Formulation: I had planned to create 3 different types of cuticle oils that support different needs and I wanted to be mindful of the ingredients being chosen. Ingredients were determined and combined based on what purposes they served (anti-inflammatory, antioxidants, bringing a different texture/feel to the product, natural scents) and how they mixed together. Many formulas were tested on my own skin as well as some friends and family and I’d gather feedback on ways to iterate the formula until I felt “This is the one!”

Packaging: Once I got the formulation down, the artist in me decided to go with hand-drawn elements of ingredients in each product. This allows you to see what you’re getting at a glance and also highlights the fact that we prioritize natural ingredients. The detailed drawings are meant to showcase the amount of time and care put into launching this product.

Manufacturers for packaging: I spoke with different manufacturers to find ones who could help with custom frosted glass bottles and custom packaging. This part definitely took the longest given the effort that goes into making these items.

The Peachy Keychain: Our products come in both a standard size dropper bottle and a travel size rollerball bottle. The rollerball can be removed and refilled with the standard size oil, but I wanted a custom tool to remove the ball. I had several ideas that I sketched out and tested with a 3D printer, until I finally landed on the peach design. This peach is shaped in a way that allows you to pop off a rollerball and place it back on — and it’s a handy keychain! I looked for keychain manufacturers for this as well.

Photography: This was one of the exciting things I got to learn! I had done some photography in the past, but not much product photography. I wanted to create images of our products that felt professional, bright, and eye-catching. I essentially built a little corner studio in my apartment with lighting for photos and created a variety of photos from standard product listing photos to “editorial”-like photos where products were floating and showcased fresh ingredients.

Website design: Now it was time to bring this all together onto the website. As I designed the website, I wanted to ensure the user experience and flows made sense, was easy to navigate, and that the information was easy to digest and understand. Fortunately, I was able to test these flows on friends who knew nothing about cuticle oils!

Marketing: My background in marketing is mainly social media marketing, so that’s where I started. I shared behind the scenes videos of building the brand, did some videos around nail care, and connected with other hand care enthusiasts! This helped drive a waitlist for launch day, which leads me to…

Launch: Launch day was a success! We had a variety of shoppers getting gifts for themselves and for the holidays, and it was exciting to see new social posts once people started using the products.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Vacance is an Asian-inspired hand care brand with a line of cuticle oils. Growing up as a creative child, I loved experimenting with nail polish and nail art. I insisted on always having painted nails, but over the years, this led to brittle nails and dry hands. Not to mention — my bad habit of picking my nails meant additional damage and inflammation.

Influenced by my family’s household ingredients that naturally fight inflammation, I wanted to understand the power of these ingredients in skincare. So I decided: let’s create a hand care brand that resonates with our roots (no pun intended). And more importantly, let’s make it something we can all look forward to.

My background is a combination of chemistry and marketing, so it was a fun challenge to bring all my skills together in one place (and learn new ones!). It’s been so exciting to see customers post photos and videos of themselves using Vacance and see how Vacance has changed their hand health.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

It’s harder than ever to stand out on social, but I’ve found the most success in being authentic. When I first started the social accounts, I shared behind the scenes videos of brand building, and I’d like to think it brought some new friends along on my journey. I even shared “photo fails” and some moments of where things might have went wrong, and those videos seemed to drive more engagement. So my advice is this: when you share who you are and your mission authentically, you’ll find the right people for your community.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

While I shared some of my brand building journey on social, I was always a little afraid of sharing my personal life, so let’s start with this: I was laid off due to a company-wide reorg back in 2023. I decided to take a break to figure out what I wanted to do, but coincidentally at the same time, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I moved home to LA to care for her. It wasn’t clear what the future of my career looked like, so Vacance was something I wanted to build during this time to challenge myself. I would share this journey with my mom and being a nail girl herself, she would help me test formulas and would always claim “I’ll be your first customer!”

My mom didn’t make it, and I launched Vacance a couple months after she passed, but I’ll always be grateful for this time I was able to spend with her.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://meetvacance.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetvacance