The Story of Glowy Super Gel

Back in 2019 (in the earliest days of Saie!), we set out to create a whole new way to glow…

When we started developing our second product ever (!), we dreamt of something we’d never seen before. We loved the impact of a highlighter, but something that kept coming up in our conversations with our community was that the most popular options at the time (think: the era of glittery, strobe-y highlighters, high contrast, and sharp contour) weren’t what we wanted in a day-to-day routine. Yes, we wanted to glow...but we wanted it to be naturally dewy, nourishing, and lightweight. An all-over brightening and a healthy illumination that looked like our skin, not like “makeup.” And all in a formula that was supercharged with clean, soothing, and hydrating ingredients.

Enter: Glowy Super Gel.

It was love at first sight (or should we say love at first glow?) There was truly nothing else like it! Applying Glowy Super Gel is that extra special something for feeling immediately “put together.” It’s instant polish & understated cool: the beauty equivalent of the perfect white T-shirt, the vintage Levi’s, the oversized artist’s button-up shirt. Or like the shift between a photo shot inside in artificial lighting versus one shot in natural light on 35mm. Same us, different glow.

In early 2020, we debuted Glowy Super Gel in the shade Starglow at our very first Café Saie on Melrose Place (which would turn out to be our last in-person event pre-pandemic). At first we found ourselves having to do a little convincing; explaining the magic of GSG can seem abstract until you try it. But once the word got out...it traveled quickly. We’d stay up late watching TikToks of people applying Starglow, describing it with the same excitement we felt. A glowy cult was born!

The second Glowy Super Gel shade, Sunglow, was created in response to our community’s request for a sun-kissed counterpart to pair with Starglow’s dewy luminosity. And slowly, we also started to notice a bigger shift happening in beauty—a greater embrace of a natural, hydrated, and embodied glow. Of products that utilized quality ingredients that genuinely nourished and supported our skin instead of just covering it up. Today we’re so proud to have been part of this conversation with all of you, ushering in a new era of natural beauty and celebrating radiance from the inside out.

Nearly 5 years later, GSG is still our holy grail of no-makeup makeup—the original Saie IYKYK. And to mark the newest shade in the GSG family, Roseglow, we rounded up a few favorite shout-outs in its glowy history.

FAVORITE HEADLINE:

“I Tried This Clean Gel Highlighter and I Am Now a Dewy Dumpling”

BEST ALT DESCRIPTIONS:

“The ultimate multitasker” – Refinery29

“True overachiever” – Byrdie

“My skin has never looked better” – Allure

“The perfect highlighter” – Editorialist

MOST “WE DID IT” MOMENT:

When Vogue named it the Best Overall bronzing drops

TIKTOKS THAT MADE IT TO OUR SLACK CHANNEL:

When Alix Earle recommended it as her Sephora Sale pick

When Jenna Lyons called it the “fountain of youth”