Tracy Dubb Has a ‘Maximalist Bottle, Minimalist Shelf’ Skincare Philosophy

Tell us a bit about yourself and how Isla came to be.

TD: Gosh, where to start. In addition to being co-founder of Isla, I’m a mom (2x), residing in the West Village and hailing from Long Island. I guess I’m a real lifelong New Yorker at this point.

I went to UPenn for college – where I actually studied Urban Studies – but was offered a job at Credit Suisse after college. This was a highly coveted job on campus, and I am more competitive than I need to be, so I gamely accepted. 

This first job set me on a very specific path – intense jobs in finance, lots of faking it til you make it, but ultimately the kind of education on brands and businesses and due diligence that even an MBA can’t buy you. 

At the job I had prior to Isla, I was finally in a role that gave me some autonomy over where I invested, and I channeled most of that energy into Beauty. I was obsessed with skincare – as a frustrated consumer, as a confounding dermatology patient (no one could ever seem to get my skin to clear up) and just as a good old fashioned fan of brands that move you.

I was sort of looking behind the curtain of beauty brands every day – and from a customer perspective – I didn’t like what I saw. Expert chemists were treated like line cooks in product development, when they should have had full creative control of the menu. Labeling practices meant that it was almost impossible to know if you were getting enough  of an ingredient to work. 

I met my partners - a family of product developers – who showed me how it could be done differently, and the rest is history. 

There are so many beauty brands on the market today. How is Isla different from the others?

This is easy – Isla’s products are what we call Concentrated Skincare. That means that whenever you buy a product from us that has an ingredient claim, we put the absolute precise amount of that ingredient in the product in order for it to work. Those numbers are not dictated by us – they are set by clinical dermatology studies. And they are readily accessible. You’d think that was industry standard, but its very much not. 

From a product development standpoint, we’re the only brand outright committing to scour the globe for the best chemist and ingredients, and starting from scratch with each product. This is much harder and more expensive, but its weirdly the only way we’ve ever considered doing it. 

As a brand, we have always set out to be a little more real. The beauty industry - especially when Isla launched - is all  high gloss and perfect  images. We don’t think that is what makes something beautiful or particularly interesting. We find the beauty in those moments in between. 

Over the past few years, we've seen the rise of celebrity skincare brands. Is marketing more difficult without that celebrity cachet to lean into?

TD: Without a doubt I think we would have had an easier launch if there was a celebrity attached to our brand, but that’s just so antithetical to who we are. We launched specifically to put these expert chemists from around the world at the center of our process, and I don’t see how we could’ve authentically integrated a celebrity into our brand, unless they were willing to drop everything to travel around the world with us to do R&D. 

Before starting Isla, you worked in venture capital, investing in beauty companies. What did you learn in VC that informed how you're building Isla?

TD: The very short answer: I learned that great products rise to the top, every time. Consumers eventually figure out what works – no matter how famous the founder is or how much money they’ve raised. That is really very much the thing that gets me out of bed on bad days: I know that we can do everything wrong on a certain day, but if the people who are getting our products are happy, then we can keep going. 

You're known for having a tightly edited product range. How have you decided which products to launch — and just as importantly, what have you said no to?

TD: We have a maximalist bottle, minimalist shelf philosophy. We want to put as many active ingredients into one product as possible, therefore giving you the need for fewer products. This to me is just how products should be made, on an intuitive level. It’s also best practice, because the more products you’re layering together, the higher chance you are reducing performance.

Most of all, I wanted to create a routine that was easy, quick and effective. I hate the fact that so many women I talk to sound slightly panicked and lost about what to use - this is meant to make us feel good. It should not feel like  homework. 

Isla is co-founded by you and Charlie Denton. How do you divide up your roles?

Charlie and his family are lifelong product developers, so naturally he manages sourcing and manufacturing. I typically have an idea for a product, and he and his family bring it to life. 

Broadly speaking, he is more operations focused, and I’m more brand and marketing focused. But we overlap more than we don’t. 

Most important of all, we have an enormous amount of trust and shared taste, which is what makes the partnership not only possible, but great. 

You have a really distinctive social presence (which I love). What's your content philosophy?

TD: Thank you.. I think :) I’m certainly not strategic enough to have a content philosophy, other than I know I should be posting more (not exactly a philosophy). I love seeing other people’s content about work or life or whatever, but I find it hard to share my own. However, I’m trying! For me, Instagram is where I feel most restrained (it’s scary), TikTok is where I have fun (it's for strangers) and Substack is where I can actually be myself and also make friends? 

Can you share your thoughts on the future of the beauty industry? Where do you think Isla fits into that?

I think the consumer today is much more fluent in beauty than they were even five years ago. People know ingredients now. They know manufacturing countries. They know the difference between good packaging and a good formula. I don’t think consumers are looking to be overwhelmed anymore, they’re looking to be informed.

I think we’ll see more multifunctional formulas. More transparency around what’s actually in products and why it’s there. I’ve already seen this goalpost move meaningfully since we launched, which is encouraging. 

I also think the lines between skincare, beauty and personal care are going to continue to blur. Consumers want products that are highly functional, beautiful to use, and seamlessly fit into real life.

That’s very much the future Isla was built for from the beginning: a tightly edited routine made up of products that are complete, clinically meaningful, and easy to trust – so I guess I see us right at the center of all that!