With New Brand Community Sixty-Six, Former The Inkey List GM Dia Foley Is Out To Streamline Skincare Routines

Dia Foley has had one of the most varied careers in beauty.

She’s worked across categories at companies big and small. Starting off as a makeup artist behind department store counters for the likes of Lancôme, she went on to a huge conglomerate (L’Oréal, where she was involved with the release of Feria) before venturing into the indie world alongside Deciem founder Brandon Truaxe, the beauty industry maverick who passed away in 2019, to spearhead sales and marketing for now-defunct premium skincare brand Euoko, a role she later occupied at Indeed Laboratories prior to joining The Inkey List as GM during its formative years.

Now, Foley’s adding to her wide-ranging resume by creating her own brand. “At this stage in my life, I thought, ‘What is it I really want to do and share with the public? What have I learned through my career?” she says. “I really wanted to tell the story of simplicity and consistency, and making skincare a lot easier. Not everybody has the time or desire to play bathroom chemist. Some of us have fur babies to raise. Other people have human babies to raise. People are in relationships. People are traveling. People have a lot of things going on and sometimes want to simplify things.”

The new skincare line Community Sixty-Six is Foley’s effort to pare back people’s skincare routines to the basics. Named for the idea that it takes 66 days to acquire a habit, the brand is debuting with eight products priced from $16 to $35: Balm Cleanser, Cream Cleanser, Gel Cleanser, Hydrator Lotion, Moisture Cream, Oil Control Lotion, Night Cream, and Eye And Lip Cream. On Community Sixty-Six’s website, people can shop by skin type, and it recommends four- to five-product regimens spanning cleansing, moisturizing and treating for dry, combination and oily skin types. For instance, people with oily skin are advised to use Cream Cleanser, Moisture Cream, Night Cream, and Eye And Lip Cream.

“It’s all about balance and creating formulas that are smart,” says Foley. “I call them smart formulas because it’s not about the level of percentages because more doesn’t necessarily mean better. It’s really about the right ingredients for certain conditions.”

“I really wanted to tell the story of simplicity and consistency, and making skincare a lot easier. Not everybody has the time or desire to play bathroom chemist.”

She continues, “We really truly believe that consistency is a skincare superpower. It is really about sticking with it to get results. I’m slightly cynical. I don’t buy into a lot of the hype. That’s why we make the language very simple. I want people to get it. I know sometimes people prefer complicated because they feel it means something better, but I really believe there is a shift happening, and I believe we need to come back to ground zero and, instead of getting caught up in everything—like all these ingredients in skincare—really understand why we need them.”

In advance of Community Sixty-Six’s soft launch last month, the brand dispersed samples of its products to about 85 people from different walks of life. With them and early customers, Gel Cleanser has been a favorite. It’s an ideal example of Community Sixty-Six’s approach. It has a panoply of ingredients such as salicylic acid, glycolic acid, mandelic acid, panthenol and niacinamide chosen to deliver a deep clean and unclog pores, and set the foundation for healthy skin.

“The Gel Cleanser washes the skin without drying it out. It helps regulate sebum production for people who are slightly more blemish-prone,” says Foley. “The product has a blend of really good acids. Some people go crazy with acids, and people can compromise their skin by feeling like they need acids too often.”

On top of Gel Cleanser, Hydrator Lotion and Night Cream have been bestsellers so far. Housed in relatively large 60-ml. to 150-ml. sizes, Foley mentions Community Sixty-Six’s products offer a substantial value if they’re compared to single-ingredient products. “We wanted to make them accessible and give people enough to last 66 days, but they last more like 120 days,” she says. “You have fully loaded products that have all the ingredients you had to buy singly loaded into one.”

“I call them smart formulas because it’s not about the level of percentages because more doesn’t necessarily mean better. It’s really about the right ingredients for certain conditions.”

In May, Community Sixty-Six will expand its assortment with a mineral sunscreen. “This was a product I felt most passionate about making sure that it could be for a universal audience. So, it’s good for all skin types,” says Foley. “It has beautiful ingredients. It has panthenol and glycerin. It’s super lightweight. I’ve had nothing by positive feedback on it. You can’t talk about streamlining skincare and providing healthy skin without having SPF. It’s a product that needs to be in everyone’s routine.”

Foley will tap her experience in categories outside of skincare to stretch Community Sixty-Six beyond it. The brand plans to enter the supplement and haircare categories. It has eight products in the pipeline, and Foley anticipates unveiling roughly two products a year per category, but she isn’t afraid to return to Community Sixty-Six’s existing products to tweak and improve them. “I don’t want to bring out a slew of products. That’s not the whole premise of the brand,” she says. “It’s about taking some of the products you already have and reformulating them to make them better.”

For Community Sixty-Six’s unfussy packaging that crosses gender boundaries and depends on straightforward tubes, Foley was inspired by luxurious Aman resorts. “I’ve never been by the way, but they’ve always inspired me because they are in natural settings,” she explains. “They have this very simple appeal, but yet there is so much going on in them. They have this very calming effect. I wanted to have that same effect with the products. I wanted to have a calming aesthetic that looks great in your bathroom.”

While Community Sixty-Six is beginning in direct-to-consumer distribution, it won’t stay only there for long. This year, it’s expected to break into a major North American retailer. Toronto-based Foley says the distribution focus for 2022 is the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Next year, Europe will be on the distribution roadmap. For its first year on the market, Community Sixty-Six, which has a silent backer, projects it could generate $10 million in sales at a minimum. Foley says, “We want to make sure everyone has access to basics.”