Yanghee Paik’s idea for her period care brand Rael germinated at an unexpected place — The Walt Disney Studios.

Speaking at WWD’s annual L.A. Beauty Forum, Rael cofounder and chief executive officer Paik, who previously worked as a consultant at BCG and as a director of distribution at The Walt Disney Studios, described how the idea for a company like Rael first came about. After landing her job at Disney, Paik met a woman who would eventually become her Rael cofounder who asked, “Do you know how tampons are made?” Paik was embarrassed that she didn’t and was disappointed to learn the truth. 

“[They] were made with synthetic ingredients, and unfortunately, we’re putting plastic into our bodies,” she said. “I was shocked by the fact that these were not clean ingredients, but more by the fact that I did not know anything about this, and as I thought about it, I was a pretty conscious consumer.” 

She continued: “That moment made us realize that women needed better education and more choices in feminine care.” 

From there, Rael was quickly born to address this need.

“We found a factory in Korea who would manufacture our organic cotton pads and tampons,” Paik said. “[When] it was time to launch, and this was back in 2017, we decided to do something very unconventional, launching on Amazon first.” 

While the team received backlash for the idea, which was unheard of at the time, it worked out very well. Per Paik, Rael was able to test the products on Amazon and receive feedback to adjust accordingly. 

“Within a few months, we actually became the number-one organic pad on Amazon, and since 2020 we have been the number-one pad on Amazon in the overall pad category,” she said. “Today we have over 350,000 reviews on Amazon.” 

With this success, Rael went on to raise its series A funding and launch at Target, its first retailer. From there, Paik expanded the brand to address all phases of the woman’s cycle, which was her goal from the beginning. 

“I always dealt with hormonal acne, and that was the reason why I hated my period,” she said. “When I learned about the science behind it, it was clear that hormones not only affected the bleeding cycle, but it affects our skin, body, vaginal health, mood, all aspects of women’s health throughout the four weeks of the cycle.”

With a robust offering that includes pimple patches, sheet masks, hormonal supplements, pads, tampons and more, Rael is now available at Target, Walmart, Ulta Beauty, CVS and Walgreens. To maintain this momentum, Paik said the brand has doubled down on education via its in-house marketing team and partnerships with key influencers to create honest and entertaining content. In addition, Paik said the brand’s innovation has been driven by its “close collaboration between our U.S. marketing team and Korea’s product development team.” 

She continued: “That enables us to move fast, identify trends early, and then usually, we’re one of the first companies to bring the novel technology, ingredients and application ideas to the U.S. from Korea. This global innovation model that we built has been the core to our differentiation, and I’ll say that allows us to be nimble as a start-up company, but at the same time deliver with sophistication as a global brand.”