If you don’t already recognize her for her brand’s viral lip liner, you might recognize Cheung as a short-form beauty content pioneer. For the past decade, she’s been creating content on YouTube for nearly a million subscribers. Five years ago, she founded her own beauty brand, Sacheu, with the launch of two stainless steel skin care tools, a facial roller and a gua sha. At the end of 2025, Cheung was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in retail and e-commerce.
Cheung didn’t take the path of a “typical” entrepreneur. She studied philosophy at UT and spent much of her time on the debate team, which she credits for helping build her confidence and the ability to express herself better.
While at UT, Cheung also began posting makeup “get ready with me” videos on YouTube and started building an audience of viewers who loved her openness, admired her love for learning, and tuned in to ask questions about college life and her favorite beauty products.
“I was a huge tomboy when I was younger, and I picked up my first MAC lip eyeliner when I was 15. I put it on, and I just felt like a woman. I’ve chased that ever since,” said Cheung. “During my time as a student, I would put on makeup just to play around with it. I would put it on at night and not have anywhere to go, but just play with it, because I love the artistry of makeup.”
After graduating in 2018, Cheung decided to pursue content creation full time and two years later founded Sacheu. A large part of her know-how came from leveraging her years of experience being her own brand in all aspects of the company, from designing the original logo to running her own photoshoots. The rest she learned along the way.
“Being a content creator, you have to come up with creative concepts. You have to learn all the production side of things — lighting, camera work, how to keep people engaged, how to use the algorithm and how to negotiate brand deals,” said Cheung. “You have to wear many hats, and it’s the same thing when you start a business.”
In 2022, Cheung was in the early stages of building her brand and was still creating beauty content full time when she went viral for using a peel-off “tattoo” brow tint as a lip liner. Her original video garnered over a million views in 24 hours and has since been re-created by thousands of other beauty influencers and makeup enthusiasts online. With features on “Good Morning America” and in New York Magazine, Cheung’s innovation wasn’t just a big deal in the beauty industry; it was worldwide.
The brow tint worked surprisingly well as a lip liner, but brow tints aren’t meant to be used as lip products and can cause dryness or skin sensitivity. As a self-described “product nerd,” Cheung saw an opportunity, and Sacheu’s “lip liner stay-n” was born.
Now in 10 shades and with the endorsement of makeup artists and celebrities alike, the peel-off lip liner stain has become Sacheu’s hero product, in large part due to popularity among enthusiastic reviewers on TikTok and Instagram. With an established audience as a beauty content creator, Cheung launched Sacheu with a larger initial brand awareness that the average new beauty brand doesn’t usually have.
“I already had a built-in community that understood my philosophy around products, and they understood what I stand for and what’s important to me, so they already had trust in what I came out with, which was wonderful,” said Cheung. “It really gave me a huge jumping-off point when we started Sacheu.”
The brand’s audience has now grown larger than Cheung’s original audience as a creator, and the company has scaled up with it, now employing almost 50 people across the U.S. and Canada. But the heart of Sacheu’s success comes from Cheung’s passion for product development and an understanding of what consumers want.
“At the end of the day, the customer is interacting with your product… They might not spend that much time interacting with your marketing material,” said Cheung. “I really want to make sure that piece is done well. People need to build that trust with your brand through the product.”
On YouTube, part of what drew viewers to Cheung was her honest reviews for products across brands. She’s kept that same philosophy as a beauty brand founder and credits much of the product success to her being Sacheu’s own worst critic. Cheung said that is increasingly important as the brand expands and develops more products.
I already had a built-in community that understood my philosophy around products, and they understood what I stand for and what's important to me...
In December of 2025, five years after starting her beauty brand and 10 years into her YouTube career, Cheung was named a member of Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 list for 2026.
After giving herself a moment to revel in what she describes as the culmination of work over the past decade, Cheung is looking to the future for Sacheu. Alongside new product releases, the brand is expanding its reach outside of digital audiences to retailers such as Target and Costco.
When the brand launched at Ulta last summer, customers were so excited they broke the store’s “Notify Me When In Stock” email limit with over 200,000 requests for the lip liner stain. Although Sacheu began and found success online, Cheung sees in-store sales as the natural next step and a confirmation that retailers trust and believe in the product.
As for the future of beauty brands and content creation, Cheung tells aspiring creators there’s no better time to start than now.
“Before I started on YouTube, before I started my beauty brand, all the noise around me was telling me it’s too saturated. There are too many YouTubers. There are too many beauty brands founded by YouTubers. People don’t want to see another one,” said Cheung. “I think that there is always, no matter the industry, there’s always space for good ideas. So, if you really, truly believe that you have something unique, no matter how saturated you feel the market is, you can just start.”
