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About Tropic
Beauty should feel good. At Tropic, it begins with freshly made formulas, crafted in our Surrey Beauty Kitchen with vibrant tropical botanicals and advanced, results-driven science. But the goodness doesn’t stop at your skin. We believe feeling good means better choices – and a bigger, brighter impact.
So, we strive for meaningful ways to give back: donating 10% of our profits to charities and good causes, and rewarding 20,000+ Ambassadors for sharing our products and supporting others on their skincare journeys.
The result? Skin to feel good in, products to be proud of, and a community that lifts each other up.
“I started Tropic aged fifteen with one goal: to help my mom pay the bills.
Inspired by my Grandma’s homemade body scrub recipe, I recreated the exotic blend at our kitchen table, before selling it at Greenwich Market every weekend.
What began as a market stall side hustle has now blossomed into a multi-award-winning business with millions of customers and over 70,000 five-star reviews. But our principles have never changed. We still use the finest tropical ingredients for clinically backed results. We still freshly make every formulation. And we still do good beyond beauty. It’s in our nature.”
Susie Ma, Founder and CEO
The Tropic Timeline
Take a look at our story so far, from humble beginnings to the Tropic of today.
Early Inspirations
Born in the vibrant city of Shanghai, Susie moved to Cairns, Australia at six – where the tropics became her playground and her inspiration. Surrounded by lush landscapes and the freshest, most nutritious natural ingredients, she began to understand how powerful nature can be for skin. She loved spending time with her grandma – a medicinal chemist and toxicologist – who taught her the simple belief that still guides Tropic today: when you ‘feed’ your skin well, it shows.
Tropic’s Beginnings
After relocating to London, Susie and her mom struggled to make ends meet. Determined to help pay the bills, Susie started recreating the homemade body scrub recipe her grandma used to soothe her mosquito bites back in Cairns. Tropic’s founding product, Body Smooth, was born.
Success In A Jam Jar
With her mom’s kitchen table as a makeshift ‘factory’, Susie poured her very first body scrub into 50 recycled jam jars. Then, aged just 15, she took it to Greenwich Market – and sold out on day one.
Susie kept studying full-time, while spending evenings and weekends creating new recipes and sharing them across London – one conversation, one customer, one jar at a time.
Open For Business
Aged just 21, Susie appeared on BBC’s The Apprentice – she was the youngest ever candidate at the time. Despite finishing in third place, Lord Sugar saw Tropic’s huge potential and decided to invest.
With this investment, Susie moved the business from her mom’s kitchen to the first-ever Tropic HQ!
Our Founding Ambassadors
On 4th May 2013, Susie was introduced to direct selling by our four founding Ambassadors – and made a defining choice about how Tropic would grow. Instead of handing the brand to third-party retailers, she chose people, taking Tropic beyond the markets and into homes nationwide.
She’d already been sharing Tropic through friends and rewarding them for passing it on, so it didn’t feel like a new direction. It felt like an extension of what Tropic had always been: honest recommendations, real connection, and beauty shared person to person.
A Force For Good
- In 2018 we became a certified CarbonNeutral® company and scored 100/100 on the Good Shopping Guide’s Ethical Accreditation Index.
- During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, we opened our very first UWS school in Cambodia and donated 50,000 bottles of hand sanitizer to hospitals across the UK.
- In 2021, we were recognized by The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 as the UK’s fastest-growing skincare brand for the fifth year running.
- In 2021 we also partnered with Resilient Reef Restoration Foundation, and introduced Provenance® to our website to maximize transparency.
- In 2022, we upgraded our core skincare products and achieved COSMOS-certified organic status for almost all of them.
- We also made our boldest commitment yet, pledging 10% of our profits to charities and good causes around the world.
Moments That Made Us
- We celebrated Susie regaining full ownership of Tropic, proudly returning us to a 100% female founder-led brand.
- We marked 10 years of our Ambassador community – a decade of unforgettable experiences, newfound confidence, and creating connection through beauty.
- On 20th June 2024, Tropic turned 20. A year of celebration, community moments, product launches for the books, and a very special new arrival: Susie’s first child, Sienna.
- Through our partnership with UWS, we opened our fifth Tropic school – continuing our commitment to help fund education for children in some of the world’s most remote communities.
What’s Next?
The next chapter is about taking it further – together. More connection. More impact. More beauty, better shared.
Because when we pass it on, there’s no limit to what we can create.
