Although UK pioneering skincare brand, The Inkey list, has only been around for six months, it has already made major waves across the UK and USA.
And now, it is making noise in the Australian beauty world, with its products recently hitting all Sephora shelves across the country.
BD spoke with The Inkey List co-owner and co-founder, Colette Newberry, to learn more about the brand and what helps it stand out. Here’s what she had to say.
What was the inspiration behind the brand?
With more skincare brands and more products launching daily, the world of skincare is becoming more and more overwhelming for customers. What do I use? When do I use it? How do I even pronounce that ingredient? We launched with the mission to cut the BS. Let's democratise skincare through education, helping people to navigate through simple to understand and easy to use and high efficacy products, at a price point everyone can afford. ‘Give it a go skincare.' Simple.
Is there a signature or hero ingredient used in the products?
Yes, we have one ‘superstar’ that we name each product after – no crazy marketing jargon here. If it's glycolic acid, we are going to name the product exactly that. We then add only more ingredients to the product to either, one: Make it more effective, or two: Dial down any irritation so everyone can try. For example, with our glycolic acid example, we have 10 per cent glycolic (high per cent for maximum efficacy), with added 5 per cent witch hazel to soothe and reduce inflammation.
What are the key components you look at when developing a new product?
So many different things inspire our innovation. Firstly, we have an incredible online community who tell us what they want and even help us to try new formulations before they are approved, then we look to our team who are always on the hunt for the hottest ingredients bubbling through, and finally we go right up the supply chain to work with raw material suppliers who are working on crazy lab stuff and looking at ingredients of the future.
How do you bring products from conception to shelves in just 18 weeks?
Not easily. We have a background in FMCG companies so know all the good (and bad) things when it comes to developing products. We have a 'yes' mentality and do whatever we need to do to make something happen, including flying to a factory to work and work on samples which would usually take weeks, in a matter of days. What we will never do is cut short the 12 week stability testing – we never cut corners on quality.
What do you look for when collaborating with retailers?
True partners. We are pretty zany (last week at our NYC pop up event, we formed a conga line down the street with customers!), and love retail partners who want to build our brand together. This is not just about sales: We genuinely want everyone to access high quality skincare. A great example is a huge retailer who told us to make our packaging ‘more premium’ and our prices higher. That is just not something we will do, so we say a big fat no.
What are the brand’s long-term goals?
Keep innovating (and fast), keep building and listening to our community who make us better every day, and getting the brand into as many people’s hands as possible all over the globe so everyone can give high efficacy, simple to understand skincare a go.
