It's the last day to vote for the annual CEW Beauty Awards. Ju Rhyu, co-founder and CEO of Hero Cosmetics, a finalist in the Launch of the Year category,  joined Cheddar News to discuss the company's Mighty Surface Patch which has become a sensation.

<div class="block">It&#39;s the last day to vote for the annual CEW Beauty Awards. Ju Rhyu, co-founder and CEO of Hero Cosmetics, a finalist in the Launch of the Year category, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company&#39;s Mighty Surface Patch which has become a sensation.</div>
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CEW Beauty Awards Finalist: Hero Cosmetics

Well, first I wanna say thank you for inviting us to your soho offices. Yeah, welcome. We're excited to be here. What a beautiful space. Tell us about Hero Cosmetics. So, Hero Cosmetics, we're a functional skin solutions brand. And for the first few years, we've been focused on acne. We're best known for our Mighty Patch acne patches. Actually, of course, how did the company get started in the first place? It's actually it comes from a personal place because I'm someone that unfortunately has that occasional breakout, but I have dry and sensitive skin. So a lot of the products that probably all of us grew up using. They didn't really work for me. It was actually really drying and, and harsh on my skin. I was actually living in Seoul, South Korea as an expat and that's where I used my first hydrolic acne patch, put it on a zit and was just so amazed at how well it worked. It was gentle but got all the gunk out and I could see it on the patch and that just really inspired me to start what is now Mighty Patched and the Hero Cosmetics brand. So you found your inspiration while you were looking for the right products for you in South Korea. Exactly. And then it took off. What was your response when so many people started loving your product? I mean, I never, in a million years expected us to be where we are today. We sell a box of money patches. Every two seconds. I knew that this was going to be a need. I didn't know that we'd see the kind of success that we've seen. Why bring to the United States. So when I use the product again, I was like, why am I learning about this now? Why do more people not know about this? They should, they need to. And so that was really the driving force behind bringing it here. What was your reaction when you realized your product went viral? Our products, they're so visual. That's what makes them go viral often times. But again, it's such a surprise. I never in a million years thought weeds see the kind of response and reaction and adoption of our products as we've seen. But it just goes to show you that our brand, we're actually solving real problems that people have. And I think that's a lot of why we go viral. You obviously ventured into other things like eye cream and retinol. What made you do that? What made you wanna expand? So I always felt like this brand had the power to really expand beyond just acne So the idea was always sort of problem solution. So we were starting with Acne and then people who have acne, I think 70 to 80% of them also struggle with sort of uh aging or fine lines. So it became a very natural segue for us. So I think that's one thing that's really special about our brand is that we're not just for teenagers or just for Gen Z, we're really a brand for anybody and everybody who has any kind of pimple emergency. Do you have any advice for people who are watching you? And just completely inspired by the entrepreneurship? Think outside the box try to do things differently because the big key to our success was when we launched in 2017, we actually launched on Amazon, which back then no one did later on, it became a big key success factor for our business. So sometimes if you just do things differently and again, think differently, it can really reward you. Well, congratulations to all your success. Yeah. Thank you.