Ten Years of Leland Francis

Reflections on August 18, 2015, and everything that’s followed

August 18 will always be etched in my memory. It’s my dear friend Jared’s birthday, and it’s also the day in 2015 I introduced the world to Leland Francis.

I had just quit my full-time job. I was nervous. Terrified, honestly. I’d been speaking with my client, Susanne Langmuir (founder of Bite Beauty, RIP to a great brand), about my idea for a face oil. She said, “Find a chemist and go for it.” So I did. I began what would become a long journey to find the right formulator and lab to help me bring that first product to life.

I funded it all with the money I made as a working makeup artist. No investors. No shortcuts. Just a commitment to making plant-based, gentle, and effective products that work for every skin tone.

The truth is, I’ve always worked. I started chopping cotton in my Grandpa McRee’s fields at age eight, with my Mexican Grandpa Peña working beside me, teaching me how it was done. I did it to pay for my back-to-school clothes. Before I was sixteen, I was making less than minimum wage washing dishes and helping as a sous chef at a local restaurant. I worked full-time throughout high school and still graduated with honors. Hard work isn’t new to me. It’s all I’ve ever known.

I still remember walking into my first retailer in Brooklyn, nervously dropping off a bottle of Luxe Face Oil. It felt like handing over my baby. Thirty minutes later, they called. They wanted it. I was ecstatic and scared. I didn’t even have an LLC set up to deposit the check. I had no idea how to run a business. I just knew I had to try.

Two years later, in 2017, my passion for fragrance led me down a new path. As someone who carries an EpiPen and is allergic to just about everything, I loved fragrance and candles but could never enjoy them. They gave me headaches, rashes, and hives. I wanted something different, plant-based, non-synthetic fragrance oils for both personal and home use.

Most people told me it couldn’t be done or that it would be too expensive. But I kept looking. Eventually, I found a small perfumer who worked with naturals. We created two scents that are still in the line today. I didn’t realize it then, but Leland Francis was ahead of the curve. With more funding, we might have even led the trend.

Then came 2020.

When COVID hit, makeup work vanished overnight. I could have panicked—and I did, for a bit—but then I focused. I used that time to study, to test, to expand. I taught myself how to pour candles by hand, how to blend and filter perfume. I failed a lot. I kept going. That’s when the Leland Francis fragrance collection truly began to bloom.

Now it’s 2025. Ten years. Ten wild, challenging, beautiful years.

I didn’t go to business school. I dropped out of college when I couldn’t pass the science classes and enrolled in cosmetology school instead. I wasn’t born into wealth. I grew up on food stamps and welfare. I was raised to be scrappy. If you couldn’t afford something, you figured it out. And that farm-bred work ethic is still at the heart of this brand.

I’m still learning. Still growing. And while I don’t pay myself a salary (yet), the real payoff comes when someone texts me, DMs the brand, or leaves a review raving about a product. That’s the reward. Every product is something I personally use or wear. Every detail has been intentionally crafted.

To those who’ve been here since day one, thank you for riding this rollercoaster with me. And to those just discovering Leland Francis, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Here’s to the next ten!

xx,
Dillon Peña

Dillon in 2015 and 2025