“The Obsession with ‘More’ is Nonsense”: BTS with the ‘No BS’ Skincare Brand
Main image – The Inkey List
Brand transparency. It’s one of the most important things to us all as consumers and yet, despite it currently being a hot topic, there are still brands who just don’t want to commit to it.
So, in a world where some are only pretending to be ‘authentically authentic’, it’s refreshing to come across one that has, from the start, shown consistency in making skincare more transparent and universal, without fearmongering for profit.
Enter stage left the skincare phenomenon that is The INKEY List, co-founded in 2018 by the (newly-married) Colette Laxton and Mark Curry, partners both in life and business.
Image – The Inkey List
I’ve been following the brand since the beginning (their Oat Cleansing Balm and Glycolic Acid Exfoliating Body Stick are genuinely two of my all time favourite skincare products), and I’ve always had a sense that straightforwardness was, well, real.
Which is why when I was offered the chance to go behind the scenes with Laxton and Curry, I was fascinated to get an insight into whether the brand’s transparency really did start at home, or whether success could have changed their original mission.
In the beginning
The pair begin by telling me that while The INKEY List may have launched seven years ago, it was the partnership behind it all that started first.
Curry and Laxton both worked at Boots, but never actually together. The day after Laxton left her position to go freelance though, she says Curry messaged her on LinkedIn.
“It pinged up. He said, ‘I heard good things about you when you were at Boots. Do you want to meet for a coffee? I’ve got a business idea,” she tells me.
And the rest, as they say, is history. “I thought he was a genius and I loved his ideas,” Laxton explains. “I started off consulting for three months to get funding for his business and then when he did it, Mark asked me to join INKEY as a co-founder.”
Image – @theinkeylist/TikTok
The remit? To create an innovative yet affordable skincare brand that was straightforward with its customers.
“Back then there wasn’t enough information. In 2018 people didn’t even publish Inci lists. They were able to just say ‘here’s this miracle product’ and didn’t even tell people what’s in it,” says Laxton.
The pair wanted to change all that – and their instincts that the world was ready for a little more than marketing hype and strict three-step routines quickly proved right. “We were really lucky that the press warmed to us quickly,” explains Laxton. She adds, “In that first year, we were launched in 30 countries.”
She tells me it mattered to both of them that ‘affordable’ didn’t = ‘cheap’, however; they wanted the consumer to still know that they were getting quality, even at a lower price point.
“That’s why we deliberately launched into places like Selfridges and Cult Beauty and Sephora early on, so that it still had prestige.”
Learning curves
So far, so candid then. And they continue, telling me too that despite the initial success the sales and press cuttings- surprisingly- haven’t always necessarily equated to security.
“There have been lots of times The INKEY List has been in jeopardy because we grew very quickly,” Curry says. “We sold out of products very quickly and didn’t always have the money in from those initial sales to make more product.”
The issue wasn’t helped by the sheer number of bestsellers the brand has, Laxton explains. “We’re not just known in one category,” Laxton says. “Some brands you would go to for a cleanser or a moisturiser, but we’ve got a winning product in each category.”
And then there’s the whole ‘putting yourself out there as a founder’ thing on social media too; a more recent development, and one which Laxton admits hasn’t always come naturally to her.
@colette.laxton these are only a selection of the MANY outtakes I have hahaha ? always like to keep it real #theinkeylist #founder #founderstory
Another learning curve for the pair was also discovering how long it actually takes to create each product. “Canada health takes 18 months, and the US takes 1 year to get a product approved,” Curry explains. Which just goes to show just how far ahead of the curve brands need to be with their ideas to still be ahead of everyone else launching theirs.
There’s the constant battle with misinformation too. “I thought skincare was a product game,” Curry says. “Turns out, it’s just as much a knowledge game. The sheer amount of nonsense and half-truths out there was staggering.
“We realised very quickly that the real unlock isn’t just better formulas – it’s breaking down barriers, cutting through the noise and giving people clarity. When we started, ingredients lists were not included on most product pages. Now transparency and knowledge are expected. On this we have played our part.”
‘Authentic authenticity’
As we settle into the interview, the pair remain upfront when it comes to talking about what it takes to run a beauty brand at this scale in a rapidly-evolving space. A space where skincare information may be at all time high, but it’s accompanied by a side dish of misinformation – as well as launch fatigue.
“Our values of transparency and information are still there but what’s changed with the amount of information around is how we put things into a format people can understand,” Laxton confirms.
And while there are “obviously competing elements and to stay creating products you have to be profitable but as far as we can within those constraints, it really is about the consumer,” she tells me.
“You have to show receipts now [to your customers],” though, she adds. “It’s not just ‘here are the ingredients and what the product can do’, it’s ‘show us the study data’.”
This, she tells me, is why the brand recently changed its tagline – ‘No BS, just better skin’, (in fact, even the brand’s new under eye patches are amusingly branded “no puff” and “no fluff”).
@colette.laxton is anyone else as obsessed as me ? #theinkeylist #founder #founderstory #eyepatches
But in a space where it feels like there’s a new launch every 5 minutes- and where our attention spans are getting shorter by the year- can a brand ever really put the consumer first where there’s constant pressure to keep launching new products?
After all, although I’m an avid beauty consumer myself, even I often feel like the sheer number of new launches is just too much.
That’s something INKEY wrestles with too, Laxton tells me. She explains Curry is constantly bursting with new ideas – so much so that he’ll shout them up to Laxton while they’re at home. “I’m like, ‘I’m in the bath, not now,’” she says.
But despite Curry’s well of inspiration, Laxton insists they don’t launch them all as they’re conscious this would add to the confusion surrounding skincare. In fact, “we actually launch a lot fewer products than I have ideas,” adds Curry.
What about expanding into lucrative areas like the at-home device space, for example, then? “Only if it genuinely works,” he says.
“If anything can solve a real skin problem, backed by science and we can make it simpler and more accessible, then we’d explore it.”
Instead of giving in to external pressure then, Curry explains where their ideas for new products actually come from. “It’s equally weighted between what the cosmetic formulators and labs know about ingredients that are coming up and new innovations that are coming up, what the consumer wants, and also, global trends,” he says.
While Laxton adds that it’s listening to customers’ real needs that helps them formulate any new products they do launch.
“So many of our product ideas come from the askINKEY chat service rather than people just commenting on social media because we get to find out exactly what skin issues someone has got and why they’d prefer to use a particular ingredient,” explains Laxton.
Image – The Inkey List
“It gives more context to what people’s concerns actually are, rather than just, oh, you know, ‘I need an exfoliator for sensitive skin’”.
And when it works, it works. Case in point; “The Exosome Serum just hit at the right time when people were interested in exosomes and it became a great success for us,” Laxton says.
“Timing is really important,” adds Curry. “How many great songs are there that never get heard and then one is released that catches a moment and it takes off?” Great point.
And while they say their glycolic stick is the product they just can’t keep in stock (“It just keeps selling out everywhere”), they’re equally open about the products that haven’t worked. “Our old bi-phase cleanser was just a bad product,” says Laxton – something which she was similarly candid about to the brand’s TikTok community.
@colette.laxton did anyone try this ? #theinkeylist #inkey #founder #founderstory
And you can’t convert everyone either, as Curry tells me. According to him, their daughter favours the distinctly girlier Glow Recipe to INKEY products. “It’s fair that [skincare] is also about play,” he says though, “It should be fun.”
The takeaway
They say don’t meet your heroes, but I was pleasantly surprised- and frankly- a little relieved that the founders behind one of my favourite brands seemed so… normal.
There was no marketing speak here, or big sales pitch. In fact, if anything, I got the impression this couple seem to want to play down their success rather than big it up.
I believe them when Curry says, “The obsession with ‘more’ is nonsense,” he says. “More steps, more layering, more percentages. Skin doesn’t need to be battered into submission. The idea that extremes equal results is not only wrong – it’s often harmful. Skincare should be targeted to you, smart and simple, not an arms race.”
I also believe that- while INKEY clearly needs profits to continue on its way- this couple don’t ever want that to be at the expense of what’s actually good for your skin.
“We want INKEY to outlive us – we’re not just in it to make money and get out,” concludes Laxton. Proof then that The INKEY List is giving the people what they want – great skincare with zero BS, all for the right reasons.
Get Glowing!
