K-beauty star Liah Yoo simplifies skincare with new launch

South Korean beauty vlogger Liah Yoo is the latest influencer to step into the beauty game with the launch of her new skincare line, Krave Beauty.

The YouTube star, who counts more than 370,000 subscribers to her online vlogging channel, launches her debut collection this week in the US and South Korea on kravebeauty.com.

Rather than buying into the famously complex skincare regimes that K-beauty is often synonymous with, Yoo's goal is to take the stress out of skincare by streamlining it. "At Krave beauty, that's our philosophy," she says in a YouTube video introducing her new line. "To empower a movement of simplicity and to offer truly craveable skincare that makes you feel damn good, inside and out."

Krave's debut consists of just two products -- a ‘Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser', which contains 40% of Matcha, and a ‘Kale-Lalu-yAHA' skin resurfacing exfoliator, which contains 5.25% of glycolic acid to remove dead skin cells. The cleanser retails for $16 and the exfoliator for $25. According to WWD, a sunscreen is planned for release around next springtime. The brand's products are cruelty-free and vegan friendly.

"I really wanted to strip it down to the basics and start from a minimal range," Yoo told WWD. "As a consumer, a lot of young customers start to apply more and more [products on their face], causing more inflammation, chronic skin disease or never curing acne or redness. There's a fundamental issue in the skin-care industry."

Krave skincare is proof of the growing commercial power that influencers wield in the beauty industry. The past few months have seen vloggers Patrick Starrr, Kandy Johnson and Raye Boyce snapped up to represent or collaborate on beauty collections for MAC, OGX and BH Cosmetics respectively.