Inside Bubble Skincare’s Winning Formula (2025)

From TikTok feeds to retail shelves and new international markets, Bubble Skincare might seem to be everywhere all at once.

But for Shai Eisenman, chief executive officer and founder of the company (which is the winner of WWD’s 2024 Honor for Beauty Company of the Year, Private),success is the result of calculated moves to expand the business strategically.

Following last year’s partnership with Ulta Beauty, which upped Bubble’s retail footprint to distribution in 10,000 doors, Bubble entered Australia with Priceline last month, as well as the U.K. with Boots earlier this year.

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On the product front, Bubble also launched new cleansers with different textures and benefits, and got into the buzzy lip balm category. Don’t let the timeliness fool you —that launch had been in the works since long before lip became the darling segment of skin care.

“It took us close to three years,” Eisenman said of creating the Tell All Juicy Secret Lip Balm, which retails for $9. “It’s already been one of our biggest successes and it’s gone out of stock three times.”

The brand is shy of four years old, and since its genesis, Eisenman’s directive has been a simple one.See AlsoBubbling Up Beauty: An Expert's Deep Dive into the World of Bubble Skin Care - HooShout

“When I started working on the brand, I couldn’t understand why beauty companies were making such significant margins. I had the assumption that to create a product that would normally cost $100 and price it at $15, consumers would be able to tell it was superior, and that we wouldn’t need to spend as much in marketing,” Eisenman said. “We made an active decision to price it on how consumers were willing to spend versus what we thought it should cost.”

Turning beauty’s traditional business model on its head wasn’t straightforward, Eisenman said, but it has worked. Bubble Skincare’s retention rates hover around 89 percent.

“From a margin perspective, because we’ve been focused on bringing prestige-quality products to an affordable price point, we don’t have traditional beauty margins,” she said. It’s also meant that she’s had to be laser focused on where she wants the brand to show up, and why. “We’ve had to be super thoughtful and careful when it comes to global expansion. We can’t just launch with distributors in every possible region.”

Eisenman said the business is profitable in spite of that. She didn’t comment on sales, but industry sources say the brand has grown 100 percent since last year. As reported, it was said to do around $85 million in 2023, which would put this year’s volume at around $170 million.

Australia has been the brand’s top shipping destination for online orders “over the last few years,” Eisenman said. “Many people across the U.K. and New Zealand apply to our ambassador program. We’ve seen the product market fit, we’ve seen the excitement.”

Eisenman listens to those brand enthusiasts when deciding what to launch and when.

The product pipeline revolves around two key criteria: “It has to simplify skin care, but at the same time, ensure that we have a choice for everyone,” Eisenman said. “We always play between those two things.”

Case in point, the brand’s vitamin C serum targets brightening, while another is for acne, and a third is for hydration. “If you look at our cleansers, we have a cleanser for every skin type and texture. We have a gel, a cream, an oil and a micellar milk.”

Prelaunch, Eisenman enlisted 200 Gen Zers for a focus group, which eventually evolved into a group 4,600-strong who informed her decision making.

“Our community is our guiding compass. It has expanded to be so much more than [prelaunch],” Eisenman said, noting it now comprises more than 50,000 members, who she calls ambassadors. “We also have products that treat texture and fine lines. We do clinical testing on the safety of use from ages 8 to 13, and we work with our dermatologist board to do research on the specific ingredients. There’s a lot of investment we are making there.”

Deep Dive, for example, the brand’s exfoliating face mask, “should not be used by younger consumers,” Eisenman said. “But it’s an amazing product, and it’s such a phenomenal one across older age groups.”

“Deep Dive” is also an apt descriptor for the brand’s product strategy going forward. Eisenman said not to expect immediate moves into adjacent categories like makeup or hair care.

“We’re very focused on going deeper versus wider, and staying focused on skin care. Sunscreen is a great area that I think is still underdeveloped across the industry, and there’s so much more opportunity,” she said. “The most important thing is to continue being skin care authorities, and we have a dermatologist advisory board of eight dermatologists.”

Communicating to broader beauty shoppers, Eisenman said, has happened organically and hasn’t required a significant marketing push. “We have done paid influencer partnerships in the past, but it’s all ambassador posts that went completely viral. One-hundred percent of them are people with around 500 followers,” she said. “We focus on communications with our community and making that one-on-one connection.”

Part of that has also been in the playfulness of each product’s branding and expression on-shelf. “We want to make it fun and playful the way it wasn’t historically in mass aisles,” she said. “Many of the top players are still the top players, but we get to deliver exceptional efficacy while still having an emotional connection and being incredibly fun. It’s about credibility, but it’s also about love and affinity for the brand.”