With New Masstige Brand Remedy, Popular TikTok Derm Muneeb Shah Tackles His Followers’ Common Skincare Concerns

TikTok-famous dermatologist Muneeb Shah, known as DermDoctor on the platform, is adding founder to his resume with the launch of masstige skincare brand Remedy. 

The brand, which focuses on effective treatments for frequent skincare concerns at accessible prices, kicks off today in direct-to-consumer distribution with three products: $38 Remedy for Dark Spots, $32 Remedy for Pore Size and $16 Remedy for Dry Lips. In the four years Shah, who’s amassed a following of over 22 million across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube and has tested thousands of skincare products, has been producing skin-related content, he’s noticed a need for research-backed skincare formulas not bogged down by confusing sciencey terms or flowery beauty marketing. 

“I really wanted to feel like I was not just creating a product to create it, but creating a product where we were really solving a problem in my audience,” says Shah. “So, I started with common problems that I was just seeing over and over in my comments in videos where people would continue to click on links. They didn’t feel like the products were working for them.” 

Shah has experienced the frustrations that his followers have experienced. For example, he’s been disappointed by dark spots products he’s recommended because he believes they didn’t adequately address the full process of pigment formation, transference and depositing that leads to dark spots. It took Shah and a chemist two years to perfect Remedy for Dark Spots’ formula to do so. The formula contains soybean seed extract, kojic acid, silymarin marianum extact, green tea leaf extract, turmeric, mandelic acid, tranexamic acid and retinol, among many more ingredients. 

“We looked at all the studies, all the clinical actives,” says Shah. “I’m not a chemist, so I took all those ingredients [to my chemist], and I said, ‘I want these 11 ingredients in one formula, so somebody could have an all-in-one nightly product to treat dark spots, and they won’t need any other product over the counter to treat them.’” 

Beyond its initial launch trio, Remedy has about six products in development. One is already finalized. Shah teased Remedy last month on social media with a limited-edition merch drop, a silk headband, and it promptly sold out. The brand has drawn a 25,000-person waitlist. 

Being a popular TikTok personality has advantages beyond a built-in audience for Remedy. Shah depended on his followers for insights on their concerns and price sensitivity. “My audience is very sensitive to price. I see it in the way that they shop, but there’s also hard data that I’m going off of,” he says. “I know what people are clicking on and what they’re buying and what people feel is too expensive and not expensive enough.” 

Prior to launching Remedy, Shah, who practices at Manhattan’s Hudson Dermatology & Laser Surgery, was conscious about suggesting affordable products, usually in the $20 to $40 range and never above $60. He’s turned down brand deals involving pricier products. Shah has partnered with Neutrogena, La Roche Posay, EltaMD and other brands. He says his long-term brand partners aren’t bothered by him getting into the brand game, and they’ve renewed their contracts with him. 

However, Shah acknowledges Remedy could affect product-specific partnerships. “Would I do another brand deal on a dark spot treatment? I feel like, if I felt the need to, then my product is probably falling short in some way,” he says. “We still need a routine around these [Remedy] products. You need to still cleanse, apply our treatments and then moisturize. So, I’ll continue to do campaigns for other brands, especially the ones that I’ve worked with. I’m certainly going to slow down just from a bandwidth perspective.”

Shah fielded several offers for launching a brand, ranging from licensing to brand incubation where he’d been minority shareholder. Although he initially set out to self-fund Remedy, the brand ultimately received backing from an investor Shah describes as one of his YouTube subscribers to cover research, development and salaries for its leadership team. Shah retains majority ownership. 

“We were able to own our formulas out of the gate. We were able to do seven or eight rounds of development on each product,” says Shah. “That helped a ton, but it was a minority investment, so we will eventually have to recoup that to continue working.”