Susie Wang
A Berkeley undergraduate who spent her lunch money on a Vitamin C serum, watched it oxidize, and figured out how to stabilize vitamins in oil — patented before graduation. She co-founded 100% PURE in 2005, a decade before 'clean beauty' entered mainstream discourse.
"If a cosmetic ingredient can warp an industrial plastic table, it has no business sitting on skin."
— Susie Wang
At 18, as a Berkeley freshman, Susie Wang spent a week's lunch money on a Vitamin C serum, watched it oxidize and turn brown, and spent months working out why. She developed a method to stabilize vitamins using oil as a protective barrier and filed patents before she graduated, receiving job offers from three of the world's largest cosmetic companies.
What ended her corporate cosmetics career was a lab accident: a spilled formulation warped the industrial plastic table beneath it — prompting the realization that ingredients she handled daily could plausibly affect human skin in analogous ways.
She co-founded 100% PURE in 2005 with Ric Kostick and her brother James Wang, retaining total equity control. The brand uses fruit and plant pigments as colorants, no synthetic dyes, no artificial fragrances, and is cruelty-free at every stage. It ships globally and operates multiple retail locations.
Patents over slogans — the brand's ingredient claims are anchored in formulation IP.
Independence as creative control — Wang and partners have maintained total equity through the entire history of the brand.
- Pre-2005Berkeley freshman; develops oil-stabilized vitamin method; files patents
- 2005Co-founds 100% PURE with Ric Kostick and James Wang