When it comes to intelligent skincare brands that bridge science and accessibility, Colette Laxton stands near the forefront. Her leadership in co-founding The INKEY List has reshaped how consumers perceive ingredients, emphasising education, transparency, and simplicity.
Early Life and Professional Roots
Little is publicly detailed about Colette Laxton’s earliest years, but her career reveals a strong foundation in retail and beauty. Before launching The INKEY List, she accumulated around a decade of experience at Boots, a leading health and beauty retailer in the United Kingdom. Working at Boots exposed her to thousands of product lines, consumer preferences, and the operational demands behind successful skincare retailing.
During her tenure in retail, she saw firsthand the gap between brand promises and consumer understanding. Many customers were overwhelmed by complex ingredient lists and marketing jargon. These experiences planted the ambition to create a beauty brand that prioritised clarity over hype and education over mystery.
Her time at Boots also gave her essential skills in merchandising, product sourcing, branding, and consumer behaviour insight—skills critical to launching a disruptive brand in a crowded field.
Founding The INKEY List
In 2018, Colette Laxton and Mark Curry co-founded The INKEY List. Their vision was simple yet bold: democratise skincare by offering effective, ingredient-led formulas at accessible price points, while backing them with strong educational content and transparency.
From the outset, Colette insisted the brand would not rely on marketing fluff or secrecy. Each product launched by The INKEY List is accompanied by clear explanations of why the ingredient is used, dosage transparency, and guidance on how to layer it—reducing confusion for consumers.
Her guiding belief is that when people understand what they are putting on their skin, they make better decisions. This educational approach also fosters loyalty, as informed users are more confident and more likely to trust the brand.
She also drove the creation of the brand’s signature “Ask INKEY” platform, where consumers and skincare enthusiasts can pose ingredient questions and receive clear, direct responses. This has strengthened The INKEY List’s position as not just a product company but also a skincare educator.
Brand Positioning and Differentiation
Under Colette Laxton’s leadership, The INKEY List carved a distinct niche in the skincare world. Instead of chasing celebrity endorsements or extravagant packaging, they focused on substance.
Ingredient-first approach: The brand highlights ingredients up front, showcases their concentrations, and explains their purpose.
Low-cost hero products: Many of their bestsellers sit in the more affordable spectrum of skincare, yet without compromising on quality.
Educational content: The brand invests heavily in consumer education through blogs, videos, ingredient explainers, and quizzes to guide use.
Transparent customer communication: They openly discuss formula changes and potential side effects, fostering trust and credibility.
Direct-to-consumer and selective retail: The brand balances online direct sales with select brick-and-mortar placements, ensuring reach while maintaining control.
This combination of clarity, affordability, and education has made Colette’s brand stand out in a space flooded with hype-driven, opaque messaging.
Leadership and Public Voice
Colette Laxton is not simply an executive behind the scenes; she has deliberately taken on a visible role as a public voice for The INKEY List. She frequently participates in industry panels, trade conferences, and podcasts, addressing topics such as the importance of ingredient literacy among consumers, building consumer trust in beauty, the evolving influence of skincare creators and micro-influencers, and scaling a beauty brand while maintaining authenticity.
Her style is conversational yet authoritative. She avoids marketing jargon, preferring plain language that resonates with a broad audience. This mirrors the brand’s own communication philosophy of clarity and transparency.
She also engages with creators and content producers, recognising that modern beauty audiences value real reviews and authentic voices. This aligns with her belief that creators should have genuine authority rather than purely commercial influence.
Notable Milestones and Achievements
Rapid Product Growth
Since its 2018 launch, The INKEY List has steadily expanded its product range. Within a few years, it offered hydration solutions, active ingredients, cleansers, and targeted treatments—each with simple ingredient panels and clear usage instructions.
Global Reach
Though based in the United Kingdom, the brand quickly captured international markets across Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East. This global expansion was anchored by a scalable digital platform and a well-structured logistics strategy.
Thought Leadership
Colette has contributed to numerous interviews with beauty trade publications, sharing behind-the-scenes product strategy and providing insight into building an ethical and transparent brand.
Leadership Transition in 2024
In 2024, Mark Curry resumed the role of CEO, while Colette remained a central figure in shaping the brand’s strategy and narrative. This change clarified their responsibilities: Curry focused on operational leadership while Colette continued to guide the brand’s voice, strategy, and consumer engagement.
Vision for the Future
Colette Laxton’s ambitions for the future include several key areas.
Further consumer education: She intends to expand ingredient literacy so that consumers worldwide better understand skincare basics before purchasing.
Sustainable practices: She emphasises that transparency must include environmental and ethical responsibility—covering ingredients sourcing, packaging recyclability, and supply chain accountability.
Community and creator integration: The brand will continue to build long-term partnerships with creators, treating them as educators and trusted voices rather than simply marketers.
Product innovation rooted in data: While many beauty brands chase trends, she has expressed that future product launches will be driven by consumer data and insights, focusing on unmet needs and safe, effective formulations.
Lessons and Insights from Colette Laxton
Her journey offers lessons for entrepreneurs and brand builders.
Clarity breeds trust: In a market crowded with overpromising and opaque formulations, clear ingredient communication becomes a unique differentiator.
Education is brand equity: A brand that helps consumers understand products becomes a trusted resource, creating loyalty and higher lifetime value.
Consumer intelligence is rising: Today’s shoppers research ingredients and share feedback. Brands must match that intelligence with openness and honesty.
Balancing scale and authenticity: Rapid growth creates pressure to compromise values. Colette’s path demonstrates that it is possible to expand while holding to core principles.
Visible leadership matters: By remaining a public face, she ensures that the brand’s values are clear and not lost behind corporate messaging.
Challenges and Criticisms
No success story is without obstacles. Colette Laxton and The INKEY List have faced several challenges.
Ingredient limitations: Simpler formulas can sometimes lack the dramatic “wow factor” that some consumers expect from cutting-edge products.
Price bracket competition: Operating in an affordable price range means thinner margins and intense competition from both indie brands and large retailers.
Global regulatory complexity: Expanding internationally involves navigating varied cosmetic regulations, ingredient restrictions, and labelling requirements.
Maintaining authenticity at scale: As the brand grows and partners with major retailers, the challenge is to maintain transparency and core values while meeting business demands.
Conclusion
Colette Laxton embodies a modern approach to beauty entrepreneurship—where transparency, ingredient education, and consumer empowerment are central. Through The INKEY List, she has proven that it is possible to build a skincare brand that rejects marketing hype, focuses on clarity, and competes on both quality and innovation.
Her journey reflects a wider shift in consumer expectations: today’s customers demand brands that speak clearly, act ethically, and deliver genuine value. For aspiring entrepreneurs and beauty industry professionals, Colette Laxton’s story serves as both inspiration and a practical blueprint for building trust and success in an age of increasing consumer awareness.
