Mode Around the Globe: Pauline Choi

Lexi Wood
@madimonroe

Photography by Julie Attallah @juliea_photo

Location: Castello Di Porciano
www.castellodiporciano.com
@castelloporciano

Tell us a little about yourself and how you would describe your personal brand in three words?
I’m Pauline, a beauty creator, founder, and deeply observant person with a low tolerance for vague advice and bad formulas. My work lives between beauty, discernment, and the psychology of why we trust certain products, rituals, and people—because skin is never just skin. In three words: skin, sass, and snatched!

What inspired you to begin your journey as a content creator, entrepreneur, or influencer?
Content creation happened to me almost by accident. One day, I posted a video about a pimple patch, and it went very, very viral. It was not strategic nor was it a part of a five-year plan. It was just one moment where life pointed at me and said, “this now!” So, I kept going because I wanted beauty to feel more honest. I wanted to make people feel less seduced by vague advice and more confident in their own judgment. I also wanted to take up space publicly, especially as an Asian American woman, in a way that was intelligent, dimensional, and true to me.

How would you describe your personal style, and where do you find fashion inspiration?
My style is minimal, feminine, and a little undone. I like pieces that feel refined but not overly perfect; a good jacket, bare skin, something tailored, a shoe that changes the whole sentence. I find inspiration everywhere: old family photos, like my mom in the ’90s, travel, and women who look like they got dressed before the world had an opinion.

What are three wardrobe staples you can't live without?
A pair of ballet flats (bonus points for colors and patterns), a mid-waist barrel pant, and a tiny top. I like when the proportions do most of the serving.

What does a typical day in your life look like when you're not traveling?
When I’m home, my days are usually a mix of filming, testing products, editing, emails, calls, and trying to remember to eat something that isn’t just coffee. A lot of my work is quieter than most assume. It’s laundry, observing, vacuuming, thinking about why Product 27 works or doesn’t, sitting in traffic for 2.5 hours, unclogging a shower drain, scheduling the week’s content calendar, and sifting through sound effects. At night, I try to do the opposite of producing: popping pimples, working on a puzzle, or doing absolutely nothing.

What passions or interests do you have outside of social media and content creation?
I’m interested in beauty beyond the surface of it—product development, consumer behavior, rituals, language, and why people attach so much hope to small bottles. Outside of that, I love arts and crafts, travel, puzzles, writing, and sharing a meal with my people in front of Love Island.

What has been the most rewarding moment of your career so far?
There are two that mean the most to me. The first is when someone tells me they finally understand their skin because of something I said. It is much more meaningful to help someone trust their own judgment than to simply influence them into wanting another product.

The second is being able to change the trajectory of small businesses by sharing their work on my channel. There is something very moving about exposing someone’s expertise, passion, and years of devotion to an audience that may have never found them otherwise. When something I post helps a therapist, esthetician, makeup artist, or business owner become more seen, that feels like influence in its most honest form.

Who are some of the women that inspire you and why?
I’m inspired by women who are soft without being fragile, disciplined without being cold, and private without being closed off. Those are qualities I associate most closely with my mom. She inspires me in a complicated, human way—through resilience, work ethic, and the kind of strength you understand better with distance. Korean women across generations carry beauty, restraint, sacrifice, and precision without always naming it. Perhaps our lineage is one I’ve been studying my whole life.

What is one piece of advice that has had a lasting impact on your life?
My dad drilled one thing into me: “Never abbreviate yourself.” It’s very easy to become a quieter, easier, more digestible, less particular version of yourself—especially as a woman, and even more so when you are ambitious, sensitive, opinionated, or simply built with a little too much voltage for other people’s comfort. You’d be surprised to know how easy it is to remember that being understood is not worth becoming smaller. This is bigger than confidence. It’s about fully and boldly using my mouth and my brain, never in fragments, never in apology, and never in abbreviations.

How do you stay motivated and creatively inspired?
By surrounding myself with people I admire and people I want to help. This combination keeps me both humbled and hungry. I also think a lot about what 8-year-old me and 81-year-old me would be proud of. One reminds me to stay imaginative, while the other reminds me not to waste the gift.

What are your favorite beauty products or self-care rituals at the moment?
At the moment, I’m drawn to products that calm, repair, and don’t make a dramatic entrance. A gentle cleanser, a barrier serum, a skin-comforting moisturizer, and a mist that lowers the temperature of my face and my mood. My self-care is about regulation—picking ingrowns, lymphatic massages, and molding masks, all with Fred again.. playing in the background.

When planning a trip, what are the top three things you look for in a destination?
A luxury stay, good food, and an inviting atmosphere. Nothing over-scheduled.

What does luxury travel mean to you?
Luxury travel is being considered before you have to ask. It’s privacy, ease, removing friction, and details that feel intuitive rather than decorative.

If you could visit anywhere in the world next, where would it be and why?
The Dolomites or a remote island in the Philippines. Somewhere—anywhere—that makes my phone feel a bit embarrassing.

What is something your followers would be surprised to learn about you?
I’m much quieter than people probably think. I have strong opinions, but I don’t always feel the need to spend them immediately. People are also usually surprised that I am 5'1". The internet has been very generous to my proportions!

What is your favorite way to unwind and recharge?
I’m happiest when I’m alone and nothing is asking me to perform. My recharge routine is a happy Russian roulette between a long full-body pamper, a massage, a puzzle, a date with my typewriter, or absolute silence. All very different doors to the same room.

How do you balance your personal life with the demands of content creation and social media?
Imperfectly, but more naturally than people may assume. I’m a private person in general, so not everything in my life feels available for consumption. Content creation can blur the line between living and documenting, but I try to keep certain things unposted and unmonetized because some things are meant to be just mine.

What are some goals or aspirations you're currently working toward?
I’m working on building beyond content—not away from beauty, but deeper into it. A lifetime of being humbled by my own skin and years of hearing other people try to decode theirs taught me that beauty’s biggest gap is not product. It’s context.

We have routines, screenshots, recommendations, ingredient lists, contradictions, and panic. What we don’t have is a tool to understand our skin with time, memory, and story. This is the future I’m most interested in now: skin education that helps us stop borrowing someone else’s routine and start reading our own.

What upcoming projects, collaborations, launches, or exciting news would you like to share with our readers?
The project closest to me right now is Mercy, a skin platform built around a simple idea: your skin shouldn’t feel like a mystery you have to scratch, pop, and peel off every morning.

Mercy comes from the same place my content does. I know what it feels like to be confused by your own skin. I know what it feels like to try everything, overthink everything, and still not know what helped, what hurt, and what simply happened because your skin had free will that week.

Beauty has become incredibly advanced, but the experience of understanding your own skin still feels strangely lonely. So, I wanted to build something that sits between science and instinct. I can’t share everything yet, but the intention is simple: something smart enough to understand nuance, but warm enough to make you feel like you’re not solving it alone.

Looking back on your time at Castello Di Porciano, what was the highlight of your experience, and what made it so memorable?
The highlight was the stillness. Castello Di Porciano has the rare quality of making time visible. I felt like I was one small chapter in a much older story.

But what was most memorable was the family that welcomed me into their home. Will, Molly, Liam, and Daisy—you’ve become a portrait of a family I deeply admire: generous, alive in love, somehow both worldly and completely at home.