DIBS Beauty - short for Desert Island Beauty Status - is a New York and Austin-based makeup brand built on a simple premise: fewer products, better results. Co-founded in 2021 by creator Courtney Shields and operator Jeff Lee alongside Tula Skincare's Ken Landis and Dan Reich, DIBS makes multi-use, vegan, cruelty-free essentials like its hero Desert Island Duo blush-and-bronzer stick. The brand grew primarily direct-to-consumer through Shields' social following, took growth capital from L Catterton in 2023, and expanded into Ulta Beauty in 2024. Its tagline: 'Do less. Look like you did the most.'
Jeff Lee is the CEO and co-founder of DIBS Beauty, the L Catterton-backed color cosmetics brand he launched in September 2021 with influencer Courtney Shields and Tula Skincare founders Ken Landis and Dan Reich. Before beauty, Lee was a corporate attorney at Wachtell, Lipton and Skadden Arps, then chief operating officer and partner at Alex Rodriguez's AROD Corp. He also spent two decades as a globe-trotting pageant coach - GQ dubbed him 'Mr. Miss Universe' - and is the only person to have worked out at all 106-plus Equinox gyms worldwide. He holds a JD from Yale, an MBA from Stanford, and lectures on ethics and leadership at Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Wharton.