How Amy Liu Built Tower 28 Into One of Sephora’s Fastest-Growing Skincare Brands

I recently sat down with Amy Liu, founder of Tower 28, expecting a conversation about her brand’s explosive growth — the kind you can chart, quantify, and drop neatly into a deck. Launched in 2019, Tower 28 is now one of Sephora’s fastest-growing brands. The brand offers an entire product line that follows the National Eczema Association’s ingredient guidelines. Also, its SOS Skincare line holds seals from the NEA, Psoriasis Foundation, and Rosacea Society. These details read less like badges and more like a brand thesis and manifesto.  

Its SOS Spray has crossed into cult territory, beloved by both mainstream customers and a slightly more discerning, ingredient-literate consumer who just wants something that works and doesn’t irritate their skin. All of this is impressive, yes. However, it doesn’t fully explain the magic behind why the brand feels the way it does, or how it engineered exponential relevance with customers, extending beyond its efficacy to its presence.  

The brand’s posture reframes the category of sensitive skin. 

Sensitive skin has always been about trust. Historically, it has shown up in branding centered on clinical language, neutral palettes, and a kind of careful, almost hushed tone designed to reassure you that nothing here will make things worse. Liu’s approach to Tower 28’s ethos reimagined that completely.   

“We want to make people feel more confident in their own skin… not like patients or victims,” she told me. 

Once you remove the idea that the customer is a problem, the brand no longer needs to behave like a traditional solution. Tower 28 is designed to be more like a companion or co-conspirator. That shift, from correction to connection, is where the category starts to bend and where its trademark joy suddenly makes perfect sense. 

The voice doesn’t diagnose you. It talks to you. 

You can hear that shift immediately in how Tower 28 sounds. It doesn’t lean into clinical authority, even though it absolutely has the credentials. The tagline —”It’s okay to be sensitive” — doesn’t just describe the product category. It releases pressure and reframes sensitivity from something to manage into something to accept. 

Liu described the balance as making beauty “aspirational without being alienating,” which sounds straightforward until you try to do it. Most brands either become so aspirational they create distance, or so accessible they lose any sense of desire. Tower 28 holds both, inviting you in, and still gives you something to reach for.