How Tatcha became one of North America’s top beauty brands

Tatcha, a skincare line inspired by traditional Japanese beauty rituals, is one of the best-performing beauty brands—boasting a cult following that spans generations, celebrities, and the industry.

While Asian beauty brands now command a significant share of the global market (41% compared to 20% in North America), the company was repeatedly told by retailers and agencies that there was no demand or interest in Asian beauty in the U.S. when it launched.

Undeterred, founder Vicky Tsai grew the company every year at a minimum rate of 40% until its eighth year when it reached 85%. Then, Tatcha was acquired by Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies.

To Vicky, each step of the journey felt like a high-wire act. The former Wall Street trader and Procter & Gamble brand manager, with a Harvard MBA, was constantly questioned about her ability to lead as CEO.

Vicky was forced to step down without cause but was later asked to resume her position. She is among many other women and minorities who are offered leadership roles only when companies are struggling—a phenomenon known as the “glass cliff.”

With Vicky back at the helm, Tatcha doubled its performance and became one of Unilever Prestige’s top-three strongest-performing ventures.

This is the story of how Vicky’s panic to heal her dermatitis led to traveling to Kyoto; how a geisha introduced her to centuries-old remedies that healed her skin; and how she launched Tatcha from her one-bedroom apartment and grew it from her parent’s garage.

Entrepreneurial roots

In 1977, Vicky’s parents immigrated from Taiwan to the U.S. Two years later, they had Vicky in Missouri, then raised her in New Jersey.

The Tsais moved again when Vicky was 14-year-old to Texas. It was a big change for Vicky, as she was one of the few minorities at her high school

Often feeling out of place, she spent most of her free time at a beauty shop owned by her mother, who had previously left her corporate career to start a number of businesses. The experience taught Vicky that starting a venture is never a question of whether you can do it; it’s just a matter of how.

After high school, Vicky attended UT Austin before transferring to Wellesley. Afterward, she moved to New York and worked as a trader on Wall Street.

It was scary and intimidating. Vicky was the only woman on the floor, and she could barely make sense of all the jargon.

Vicky had to remind herself that she was just as smart as her peers and that if she worked hard and asked the right questions, she could figure things out.

It only took a year for Vicky, but by then, she realized Wall Street wasn’t for her.

When the World Trade Center was attacked, Vicky was in a meeting inside a connected building. There were no windows, but she could feel the rumble from the first plane.

By the time the meeting ended, Vicky heard sounds coming from the second plane. She had no idea what was happening, but her instincts told her to leave. So she walked down seven flights of stairs to exit the building.

From outside on the sidewalk, Vicky could see crowds of people flowing out of buildings. Then, some began to jump.

In the aftermath, Vicky had to return to that scene every single day while her husband, Eric, became sick with an autoimmune disease.

“At that time, I didn’t know anything about ikigai, a Japanese concept that means ‘a reason for being,’ but I knew that if I was going to spend the hours that I’m awake working and not with my family and not playing, I wanted my work to mean something.”

Experiment gone wrong

Eventually, Vicky left New York and moved to Boston to attend Harvard Business School. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next but knew she needed to broaden her skill set.

“It’s kind of a scary feeling to have gone through college, gone through your first career choice, and then be like, ‘I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.’”

Vicky ended up getting an internship with Procter & Gamble, working on its acquired Japanese beauty brand, SK-II. She treated her skin like a science experiment, trying SK-II and its competitors’ products to craft a strategy.

Unfortunately, this led to developing acute dermatitis. Her entire face would blister and scale, including her eyelids and lips.

The condition of Vicky’s skin made her insecure during job interviews. She would pull her hair over her face and wear glasses in hopes that no one would notice.

Still, she landed a position that didn’t require her to try more products. And it would ultimately lead to discovering something that would heal her skin—and her soul.

Climbing the corporate ladder

After graduating from Harvard, Vicky moved to Seattle to work for Starbucks as a brand manager.

She was tasked with launching a consumer product business in China before the Beijing Olympics. She had no manager, a tight budget, and a year and a half to get the job done—despite it normally taking three years.

Having to sprint to the finish line, Vicky traveled to Asia every few weeks. She would stay in the office until nearly midnight and worked with zero days off—even when she broke her arm.

While challenging, she learned a lot about the different sides of business. That included operations, supply chains, marketing strategy, and IP. She also finally discovered a product that helped control the excess oil on her skin.

At the time, Vicky used Aquaphor as a moisturizer, an ointment designed to treat and prevent diaper rash and other skin irritations. It was the only product that didn’t irritate her skin, but it left it looking greasy.

A co-worker introduced her to Japanese blotting papers called aburatorigami. Unlike the cotton ones in the U.S., aburatorigami is made with abaca leaves hammered with gold flakes. When pressed on the skin, it lifts oil without taking any moisture or disrupting makeup.

Vicky would stock up on aburatorigami each time she flew through Japan to China for work. That stopped when she realized Starbucks was no longer the place for her.

Trusting her instincts

Despite all the challenges, Vicky’s project in China was a success.

She was praised for her efforts and even asked by then-CEO Howard Schultz to present to the board of directors.

Shortly after, Vicky had her annual performance review. Her absentee manager gave her a standard rating: meets expectations. They could not explain why beyond judging her leadership as weak.

Vicky was mortified. Although she had a lot of admiration for the company and Howard, her instincts once again told her to leave.

At 28-years-old, Vicky was starting over again. She ended up moving to San Francisco to run marketing for a sustainability startup.

When Howard found out, he got in touch with Vicky and asked to meet. He wanted to know what kind of job would make her return to Starbucks. Not wanting to call out her manager, Vicky insisted that she just didn’t fit.

Eventually, Vicky felt that while she respected what the sustainability startup was doing, she wasn’t the right fit there either.

“One day, I woke up, and these words came out of my mouth: ‘I choose happiness.’ It was a voice that I had been suppressing for so long. As the kid of immigrants, everything is about duty and making your parents’ sacrifices worthwhile and following this path.”

After Vicky handed in her resignation letter, she carried the one thing that she owed to her car—a Herman Miller chair. For a moment, she felt happy. But as she wrestled with putting the chair inside her car, she broke down. Everyone in the office could see her crying from the window. It wasn’t the exit Vicky had imagined.

When Vicky got home, she questioned what to do with her life.

She was alone in San Francisco as her husband had yet to move from Seattle. They were paying off a mortgage and business school debt, totaling around $600,000. And now, Vicky was stuck on a lease for an apartment in the city. She felt that she had really made a mess for herself.

To make ends meet, Vicky worked four jobs. One of them was helping her landlord rent out apartments in the Marina. Sometimes, she’d run into her former classmates from business school.

“Is this your apartment?” they’d ask. When Vicky told them no, they’d look at her with pity and confusion.

Vicky didn’t mind, but she would soon find herself packing her bags again.

When she ran out of aburatorigami, she called up a former colleague at Starbucks and asked where she could find more. That’s when Vicky learned about an artisan gold-leaf workshop in Japan.

Vicky was fascinated. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt drawn to travel to the country. And although she was pregnant, she trusted her instincts once again.

A fated meeting

A couple of hours outside of Kyoto, Vicky found the gold-leaf workshop. Out of curiosity, she asked the artisans how aburatorigami was discovered. They didn’t have an answer but offered to introduce her to a geisha who might know: Kyoka.

Vicky took the opportunity and went to a teahouse to meet with Kyoka. She was immediately enchanted. It was a hot summer day, yet Kyoka’s skin was flawless.

Kyoka wasn’t able to explain how aburatorigami was discovered. Though, she shared the traditional beauty rituals that she and other geishas followed. 

In Japan, there’s an emphasis on restoring the skin to its natural state. This is achieved by using only a few products containing natural ingredients like rice powder and camellia oil. Meanwhile, in the Western world, the focus is on targeting specific concerns. This encourages the use of multiple products containing strong chemicals like benzoyl peroxide, AHAs, and BHA—which, if they overwhelm the skin, can damage the barrier.

Still struggling with dermatitis, Vicky headed to an apothecary to find the products that Kyoko used. There, she saw one geisha after another grab bell jars full of powders, oils, and waxes. Like Kyoka, all of them had flawless skin, so she felt comfortable trying whatever they bought. It wasn’t long before Vicky’s skin finally started to heal after three years of using steroids and antibiotics.

Before leaving Japan, Vicky went back to visit the artisans at the gold-leaf workshop. She hoped to secure a steady supply of their blotting papers and asked if she could bring them to the U.S. Their answer was no.

“How many would I have to buy to get you interested?” Vicky asked.

“Ten thousand,” the artisans told her.

Without hesitation, Vicky agreed, even though they would cost her more than $30,000. She had no idea how she was going to afford them.

When Vicky returned to her hotel, she called Eric and told him about her plans.

“How are you going to pay for them?” he asked.

Vicky still didn’t know. She looked around the room and then down at the engagement ring on her hand.

“I’ll sell my ring,” she decided.

Inspired to start a venture

A few months later, the Japanese blotting papers arrived in crates in San Francisco.

Having more than she needed for a steady supply, Vicky started thinking about how she could share them with other women.

“I still can't explain it. I saw this vision in my head of sharing these beautiful little treasures that I found in Japan with other women like me, who were looking for something that was real, beautiful, and safe. And so I thought, maybe I can create a way to keep sharing these things that I'm finding.”

It was then that Vicky decided to start a brand. With help from friends, she called it Tatcha. The name was inspired by tatehana, a form of ikebana, and the feeling of an exhale.

To protect the brand’s intentions, Vicky decided to finance it on her own rather than raise money from venture capitalists.

“I wasn't interested in creating something for money or for growth. I was interested in creating something worth loving and that I would wanna spend the waking hours of my life doing.”

With no savings left, Vicky continued to work four jobs. She also sold whatever she could—her car and furniture—and turned to credit cards. When one maxed out, she’d roll it over to another to buy herself time.

By then, Vicky was nine months pregnant. She couldn’t afford maternity clothes, so she’d pull the drawstrings out of her sweatpants, holding them as she walked to keep them on.

‘No demand or interest in Asian beauty’

From Vicky’s one-bedroom apartment, she prepared to launch Tatcha.

She was confident that the product’s story and design would resonate with potential partners—retailers and PR agencies. Nearly all of them had the same response: “There’s no demand or interest in Asian beauty in the U.S. It’s not aspirational.”

They encouraged Vicky to abandon her idea, pointing out that Shiseido, SK-II, and Shu Uemura struggled to take off in the U.S., despite one being backed by Procter & Gamble and another by L'Oréal.

It felt like high school all over again for Vicky, but the rejection only fueled her passion for Tatcha. She was determined to bring a different perspective of beauty to the U.S.

In hopes of getting the word out, Vicky headed to the library, flipped through magazines, and wrote down the names and addresses of editors and makeup artists. Then, she sent them packages of the blotting papers with handwritten letters.

Vicky’s efforts paid off. Tatcha received major press and was even featured in Vogue and Oprah. The brand also caught the attention of British retailer Space NK, which became its first distribution partner. Tatcha launched in stores that same year, on the day Vicky’s daughter was born.

While there was much to celebrate, Vicky continued to struggle. The little revenue she made had to go back into the brand, and she could barely spare any time off. She returned to work the day after giving birth and had to travel a few weeks later.

Then, Vicky found herself at a crossroads. Two companies offered to acquire Tatcha. Vicky wasn’t even thinking about selling the brand, but it was tempting. The amount being offered was just enough to pay off her $800,000 debt. Along with maxing out all of her credit cards, she had borrowed from her parents' retirement fund and other family and friends.

As Vicky considered the proposal, a mentor who had a stake in one of the offers gave her some advice:

“You have lucked into a brand that has the potential to be one of the greats. And if you love it, like you love your child, then you’ll give it to a mother who knows how to raise it because you do not have what it takes. You don’t have the money. You don’t have the know-how. You don’t have the team.”

Terrified, Vicky agreed to let go of Tatcha.

Expanding into skincare

As the deal was being worked on, Vicky received an unexpected call. The company was pulling out without explanation.

"I don't think I can do this," Vicky admitted to Tatcha's general manager, Tanaka-san.

"This is leadership," Tanaka-san reminded her. "Finish what you started."

Vicky took his advice to heart and stuck with her vision: sharing more of the treasures she found in Japan with other women.

As the blotting papers grew in demand, even among celebrities, Vicky started working on expanding Tatcha to include skincare products. The idea came to her when she struggled to find more of the products she had discovered at the apothecary. She searched through countless stores and online but had no luck. So, she decided to return to Japan and develop her own formulas.

When she asked locals about the products, many looked at her like she was crazy. Some even laughed. They told her the products were considered "old-fashioned," the kinds of things their great-grandmothers used, and insisted that nobody used or liked them.

Having experienced the magic of the products, Vicky remained determined to share them with other women. No manufacturing lab was willing to work with her, so she had to find her own scientists. By chance, they ended up being some of Japan's most famous.

Vicky and Tatcha's scientists dived deep into research. They interviewed dozens of geishas and read old texts, including the oldest beauty book written in 1813: Miyakofuzoku Kewaiden. Their findings led them to discover three superfoods credited with the Japanese's long lifespans—and flawless skin: Uji green tea, Okinawa mozuku algae, and Akita rice.

"Like many other cultures, hundreds of years ago, when women found that their skin was dry or patchy or breaking out, they went to what's within reach. And what's within reach is in the kitchen. So the basis of the Japanese diet is the basis of their beauty."

Inspired by this ancient ritual, Tatcha’s scientists created Hadasei-3: a formula that blends Uji green tea, Okinawa mozuku algae, and Akita rice into an antioxidant complex. It served as the cornerstone of Tatcha’s first skincare collection, which included a cleanser, exfoliant, serum, and moisturizer.

The trade-off

Tatcha launched its product line exclusively in the U.S., online and at Barneys.

In the same week, it hit the holy grail of press, securing coverage in Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, and the Today Show. Yet, the brand only sold one serum, even after Vicky accidentally set all the product prices to $0 on the website.

So, Vicky decided to try her luck with QVC. At the time, she and her family had moved into her parents' house in San Francisco. Boxes filled up every room, and payroll was coming up. She begged QVC for a meeting. After the fourth try, they gave her the chance to appear on the show in three segments in one day. By the end, the products had sold out.

Having started to achieve profitability, Tatcha secured funding from a private equity firm. Vicky felt she could finally breathe a sigh of relief, but the new backing came with more pressure.

The partners insisted that she hire a real CEO. To Vicky, it was a gut punch. At the time, Tatcha’s growth rate had been 85 percent. When she questioned the reason, she was told, “If your ego is so big that you need to be CEO, then we can have that conversation.”

Vicky decided to step down and brought in new leadership. For the next three years, she put herself in a box—focusing entirely on product development.

Owning her success

Two years later, Tatcha was acquired for an estimated half a billion dollars by Unilever—one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies.

By then, the brand had turned down many offers, as it hadn’t been looking to sell. What made this time different was Unilever's commitment to being purpose-driven and the leadership of Vasiliki Petrou, the CEO of its beauty brand division.

The two first met years earlier when Tatcha was looking to raise capital. Vicky didn’t expect anything to come from their meeting but hoped to collaborate with Vasiliki someday. They stayed in touch, often sharing their thoughts on being women in business, and eventually, the idea of a partnership came up.

"I decided that, while I would love to run this myself independently forever, I know that's not possible. So I would rather get it into a forever home where it can be protected, and I can stay with it."

While Tatcha continued to operate independently, it faced challenges that worsened when the COVID-19 pandemic caused supply chain issues. That’s when Vicky was asked to return as CEO to turn the company around.

“Some said, ‘Don't put her back in as CEO; she doesn't have what it takes. This business is too complicated for her. She's intimidated by it.’ The second time around, I thought, ‘Why don't I show you how it's done? Take a seat.’”

A household name

What Vicky initially thought was one of the worst things to happen turned out to be a gift. 

Assessing what had happened to the company gave her the opportunity to double down on building a brand that lasts. It also gave her a chance to show up as a leader in a way that was authentically her.

“In the 10 years I spent leading Tatcha, I never felt comfortable or worthy of being called the CEO. I came up with the title of 'chief treasure hunter' to throw people off and hid that I had gone to Harvard Business School to avoid seeming boastful. 

Like a lot of Asian Americans, I was raised with the belief that being successful meant working hard and keeping our head down, but this has contributed to our invisibility and the misperception that we are not fit to lead. When I was asked to come back as CEO the second time around, I came back with confidence that I am uniquely qualified to run the company I built from scratch.”

Now, Tatcha remains a favourite with a cult following among generations, celebrities, and the industry. That includes Oprah, Selena Gomez, and Daniel Martin. Notably, this year, the company doubled its performance and became one of Unilever Prestige's top three strongest-performing ventures. Throughout its success, Tatcha has donated a percentage of every product sold to Room to Read, a nonprofit that helps children in historically low-income communities develop literacy skills.