Jasmine Zhao

Jasmine Zhao: The bioplastics engineer who transformed pain into purpose 💼🔬

“They kept telling me I was too pretty to be a scientist. Too delicate to be in the lab. Too feminine to be put into a management position. But glass ceilings? I broke them in Louboutins.” 👠

The beginning of my story begins in a small apartment in Shanghai. The acrid odor of instant ramen combined with my mom’s tears in the air. I was just 16 years old when I watched my mom sewing designer knock-offs under a flickering light bulb, her hands bleeding from the thread, working as hard and as long as she could to pay for my school books, hoping that I would some day earn enough to both get out of that flat and buy the instant ramen in the flavour that I wanted."You better study so you don’t end up like me", were the last words she would say to me in her ill-fated plea. It was a promise I would destroy to rewrite our story, but it wasn’t my destiny…🏻 🕯️
I graduated from Tsinghua University and was the only women in my polymer classes. One of the male professors "jokingly" remarked that I should apply to the fashion design department. I remember my lab partners "coincidently" locking me out of experiments. On one occasion, I literally collapsed after 72 hours non-stop research, sustained by nothing but ¥5 energy drinks and revenge. I woke up to find the base bioplastic formula I created from discarded lotus roots - and boy, the tears was the catalyst. 🌸
I now walk down boardrooms with a puffed chest in blazer jackets and glasses, hiding the fire of a girl who sold all her jewelry just to pay for gloves in the lab. My patents earn enough to open a shelter for single mothers. I made viral TikTok videos on reverse "gentleman’s club" spend policies in science. And, yes - I still wear heels in the clean room. Because nobody tells you that being elegant is like armor. Every click of the stilettos is “this is what winning looks like.” ✨

DM me your most dark failures. Let’s make gold out of them. 💋