RISABAE — Building a business under her own name with the hands that once adorned other people's faces

On April 24, 2018, RISABAE appeared on the MBC radio show Two O'Clock Date, hosted by Ji Seok-jin, and said there had been months when her monthly gross revenue reached 50,000,000 KRW. She explained that the amount was revenue, adding that she had two regular employees and planned to hire two more, and that significant costs were also going out. Behind the single makeup artist people saw on screen, there was already a workplace where several people worked together.

That day, RISABAE did not just talk about income and leave. Between the advertisements and songs, she applied makeup to host Ji Seok-jin's face and, in less than an hour, showed a transformed look. Someone who had once worked in the MBC makeup room was now an invited guest, showing the work she did best.

The Makeup Skills She Built at Broadcast Stations and Shops

Her path to the broadcast station began with Infinite Challenge. A fan of the program, RISABAE came up to Seoul from Gwangju at twenty-two and entered the MBC makeup room. She was in charge of makeup for news announcers in the news division, and later built experience through the entertainment makeup team and the special effects makeup team.

What stopped her from continuing the work she loved was an accident on the job. After chemicals used in special effects makeup spilled on her arm, she suffered a severe skin disease and could no longer continue the same work. She moved to a makeup shop in Cheongdam, where she met singers and actors, brides and ordinary customers, and worked there as the shop's manager.

The Personal Broadcast That Began with a Customer's Recommendation

The person who suggested a new path was Diva Jessica, a customer at the shop. RISABAE received a proposal to try personal broadcasting, but she refused for almost a year. For someone who had been doing makeup on other people’s faces, the idea of doing her own makeup and broadcasting alone felt unfamiliar. Only after being urged again did she decide to take on the challenge and quit the shop.

What supported that decision was also her makeup skill. She thought that if broadcasting did not go well, she could work at another shop or do related work, and if her earnings were insufficient, she could also take a part-time job. Judging that doing both jobs in parallel would prevent her from focusing on either, she decided to devote herself to broadcasting.

In July 2015, RISABAE began presenting beauty content on AfreecaTV and YouTube. The first broadcast had at most 15 viewers. She was familiar with makeup, but she was clumsy with broadcasting equipment and functions, and even how to play music or the button to start a broadcast felt unfamiliar. Later, when fans asked her to replay the first broadcast, she recalled with a laugh that she took out her earphones and neither watched nor listened to it.

Adding Observation and Preparation to Celebrity Transformation Makeup

What drew people in was celebrity transformation makeup. When she showed Taeyeon makeup, about 1,600 people entered the broadcast, and at the time of a 2016 interview, live viewers exceeded 2,000. The face that became Kim Min-hee from the film The Handmaiden and then transformed into Sunmi attracted not only people who wanted to learn makeup techniques but also people curious about the transformation itself.

That transformation included the work of learning expressions. In 2019 on Section TV Entertainment News, RISABAE explained that she watches stars’ videos a hundred times each and studies which facial muscles they use. After drawing the shapes of eyebrows and lips, she added even the expressions that the character makes. This kind of observation was behind her ability to embody characters with completely different atmospheres on her own face, such as Sunmi and Jang Chen from the film The Outlaws.

What she had to prepare was not only cosmetics. RISABAE personally sought out costumes, wigs, and makeup supplies, and in the early days she reinvested most of the money she earned into preparing for the next broadcast. In 2016, she met viewers through live broadcasts on six days a week, excluding one day. Showing a new face and keeping the next broadcast time built up together.

Turning Viewer Questions into Live Broadcasts and Videos

Along with dramatic transformations, the channel also filled with makeup techniques viewers could follow. What RISABAE had to newly learn here was finding out where people got stuck. Because the techniques were so familiar to her, she did not know what ordinary people were curious about, so she asked people around her about the difficulties they faced when applying makeup and the makeup they wanted to try. The questions gathered this way became the topics of her videos.

The production process she revealed in a 2017 interview is specific. First, she chose a topic and ran a live broadcast on KakaoTV for one to two hours, answering viewers' questions on the spot. After the broadcast ended, she organized requests and delivered them to an editor, then personally checked the video completed at 10 to 15 minutes before posting it on YouTube. A live broadcast of doing makeup together in real time and a video that could be chosen and watched later came out of a single work process.

In August 2017, her YouTube subscribers reached about 950,000. RISABAE said she went to a G-Dragon concert and only after hearing that the audience was 40,000 did she grasp the scale of 1 million. It was a number that required 25 times the people gathered before her eyes. When she appeared on radio the following April, she was introduced as a creator with 1.5 million subscribers.

Advertising and Event Income, and Team Operations

There were also places money came in throughout her content activities. In September 2018 on Park Myung-soo's Radio Show, RISABAE described video platform advertising revenue, event income, and PPL product placement as her income sources. In particular, she said she only did PPL for products she genuinely liked. What began as showing makeup led to brand collaborations and live events.

Her criteria for choosing products sent by brands were also clear. In an Ilgan Sports interview that same year, she explained that she only proceeded with advertising after trying products herself and being satisfied. A single makeup look usually used about 20 products, and viewers could see together how the products were applied to the face and what expression they created. It was a method that did not stop at introducing product names but showed the application scene and the finished result.

Business growth also changed her family's life. RISABAE, who had lived in a small semi-basement for five years after coming up to Seoul, said on radio in 2018 that she had contributed money to her parents' home purchase. She also took care of household items such as interior work and a TV. In a setting where talk of monthly sales became a hot topic, what she brought up along with it was the story of her parents' new house.

Filming, editing, and schedule management gradually became company work. In a 2021 interview, RISABAE introduced 'RISABAE ART' as a company that supports the production of her content and products. On days without outside schedules, she researched materials for the next content with colleagues and discussed progress. The face on screen was RISABAE, but what to show with that face was prepared together by the team.

The appeal she found in video was that a single piece of work could be delivered far and for a long time. At the shop, she had to make appointments with each customer and apply makeup in person, but a video could be found by people in many countries even as time passed. RISABAE read not only YouTube and Instagram comments but also blog reviews, checking what kind of help her explanations actually provided. The experience of doing makeup for customers expanded into an ongoing conversation with people beyond the screen.

Turning Her Own Expressions into a Cosmetics Brand

On February 4, 2023, she introduced the cosmetics brand Two Slash Four. It is a brand that took the numbers 2 and 4 from RISABAE's name, prepared for about a year through Amorepacific's in-house venture incubation program and then launched as an independent corporation. Amorepacific participated as an investor, and RISABAE served as CEO and brand director. It was a challenge that added production technology and the experience of experts to her own product ideas.

The first product was the “Glaze Lip Changer.” It was designed to be used together with other lip products already owned to add a new expression. RISABAE explained that she wanted people to directly experience the subtle makeup expressions that were difficult to convey through video. The goal she said she wanted to achieve through the brand was “a brand that changes the vanity table.”