Jamika Martin on tactile formulas for breakouts and marks

ROSEN Skincare started in a UCLA dorm room as an answer for skin that mass acne aisles overlooked. Founder Jamika Martin now blends in Austin for melanated skin that breaks out and marks, matching plant extracts with tested actives. She describes feel, finish and why a shorter shelf wins.

Jamika Martin never planned to lead a skincare label. She wanted her own face to settle. After long breakouts that persisted through two courses of Accutane, she faced the Target acne wall and found only sharp cleansers she had seen for years. Nothing felt made for a young Black woman managing fresh bumps plus lingering spots.

So she began stirring blends in her dorm at UCLA, a Paso Robles native discovering through testing what her face would tolerate. Rose is her middle name, which supplied the base of the label, though Rose alone sounded cosmetic and Rosen remained. That tiny edit captures much of the line that came next, gentle to the ear and plain in purpose.

Today ROSEN Skincare works from Austin and retails across the country, including a broad Ulta rollout in around 700 doors in April 2022. Its promise is authentic acne care, supported by research and built for real skin. What Second Skin noticed first is how much stays tactile. This is not acne care as scrub and sting. It is morning and night care that honors melanated skin, treats visible bumps as normal and treats the trace they leave as part of one ritual.

What keeps us here is the feel inside that pledge. Tea tree, licorice extract, honey, lemon and strawberry extracts stand beside niacinamide, zinc oxide and kojic acid. Martin never presents plants as garnish. She presents glide, rinse, cushion and finish, brightness on the surface and a cadence young skin will truly maintain.

Friends started borrowing your dorm blends because your skin looked calmer, after you spent nine months off a second Accutane course and felt desperate. What did those first pots feel like to make and use, and when did you sense they could serve more than yourself?

Thanks so much for inviting me. I had finished my second course of Accutane nine months before. I felt nervous even taking it the first round, yet my skin had left me feeling desperate. Nothing from the drugstore had held me steady and the prescription path had worn me down. In my dorm I kept it basic, studying labels and testing softer bases with parts I could follow. I was a sophomore at UCLA and then a junior, noticing what caused burning and what brought ease. Friends began asking about my shelf because my face seemed settled. Then friends of those friends asked. That response first hinted this reached past my own mirror. I never intended a label. I intended to cross campus without thick coverage. After other young women with kindred skin told me this is the first product that avoided stripping me, I felt duty bound to render it steady and safe for sharing.

Rosen grew from Rose, your middle name, because Rose alone sounded like cosmetics. Why was that line worth drawing, and what does the extra letter allow the label to express?

Rose comes from my middle name, and that is the source of the rose element, yet I thought the word read as cosmetics. I never wished for a listener to picture gloss or pressed powder upon hearing us. I wished for the word to suggest tending. Adding the N lent the feel of a family name, like a compact house with a stance. Rosen preserves the tenderness of rose, which holds personal weight for me, while signaling we handle skin. It also rescues us from a strictly earthy slot. A rose title might imply only petals or only sweetness. We center blemishes first. The title carries both strands, the herbal origin and the hands on task. Folks recall it, they voice it with ease at shelf, and it permits movement from washes toward care for spots without seeming strange.

That Target acne wall looked unchanged from ten years before and left you deeply let down. What texture and finish felt off to you there, and how did that moment set your rule to pair tested results with plant derived care?

My breakouts were active and revisiting that acne shelf at Target felt deeply let down. Those were the identical goods I had browsed a decade prior. Each option seemed abrasive and parching, designed for fast desiccation instead of for skin that also discolors. There is a lot of labels for blemishes and a lot of labels that are plant based, but there is very few that unite the two. That sentence still steers us. I sought care that aided the look of bumps and encouraged a clearer appearance without raw aftermath. Our About page phrases it directly, authentic acne care, research backed and made for real skin. By real skin I mean melanated skin prone to pimples and quick to mark. Therefore we unite parts with research support, such as niacinamide plus zinc oxide, with botanical portions such as tea tree plus licorice. We aim for transformative results that sustain lasting confidence, rather than a tingle that pretends to prove action.

Earth Clearing Cleanser remains your hero, built on Fuller’s earth clay plus zinc oxide, tea tree and niacinamide for shine and spots. How does each element shape the slip, scent and rinse for skin that stains easily?

Earth stays our anchor since it performs everyday labor without fuss. Fuller’s earth clay lends gentle glide and assists in lifting surface sebum so pores seem tidier. Zinc oxide encourages a settled look, which counts when eruptions leave the face flushed and patchy. Tea tree serves as our herbal core for blemish prone complexions. It carries a crisp green aroma and an enduring record in spot care, and it lends the blend an active character without a scoured sensation. Niacinamide feels weightless on fingertips and leaves the cheek looking balanced and more even. I desired a wash usable dawn and dusk while coping with live bumps plus prior traces concurrently. It should wash away fully, keep the cheek supple, and ready the skin for later layers. When a wash leaves tautness, the following layer gets skipped. Ours is composed to sustain momentum.

Moonlight Moisturizer holds at eleven parts with tea tree for a clearer feel, niacinamide for shine and licorice for luminosity. Why keep the roster that spare, and how do you press it in when richer creams once felt risky?

I discovered early that reactive skin prone to spots dislikes crowding. Moonlight contains eleven parts since each must justify inclusion. Tea tree contributes to a fresher regimen sensation. Niacinamide encourages an impression of measured oil across hours. Licorice extract is the soft herbal note I adore. It aids an impression of radiance, which matters when historic marks keep the surface looking mottled after bumps fade. Many in our circle said they avoided cream because textures felt weighty or unsafe. Hence we built a fluid that spreads thin and absorbs. Apply dawn and dusk following washing, a modest press across face and throat. When very slick, begin with a sheer veil by day plus a deeper veil by night. We seek supple, buttressed skin that grips foundation or SPF neatly and avoids midday gloss.

If I cannot explain an ingredient to a nineteen year old in one sentence, it probably does not belong in that formula.

Jamika Martin

After blemishes you pursued brightness with Honey Kojic Illuminating Cleanser with honey and kojic acid and Super Smoothie Brightening Serum with lemon, strawberry and hyaluronic acid. Why treat spots as the second half of acne, and how does honey shape the hand feel for deeper tones?

Pimples formed just one portion of our shopper narrative. On melanated complexions, a lesion commonly deposits a dark trace that outlives the swelling. Therefore entering spot care seemed truthful, not a sales driven sideline. Honey Kojic supplied our daily answer. Honey lends glide and suppleness and lets the face feel soothed amid washing. Kojic acid aids the look of fading traces and blotchy tone. You massage and wash like any cleanser, thus it slots into a kept habit. Super Smoothie extends the same thinking in a stay on layer, with lemon extract plus strawberry extract plus hyaluronic acid to foster a hydrated, lit appearance. I hope a young person watches gradual change across weeks and regards the course as ordinary. Acne normalisation involves featuring women with bumps and traces and offering dependable care for each.

Around seven hundred Ulta doors in April 2022 brought two fresh formulas for blemishes and hyperpigmentation, and you have said retailers must platform more diverse founders while still learning to support an indie. How do you protect a small brand touch at that footprint?

The function of retailers is placing more varied labels and makers on display. I believe many such retailers still puzzle through collaboration with an independent label. That remains accurate. Arriving in around seven hundred Ulta doors with two fresh formulas for blemish prone skin and hyperpigmentation marked major growth for a lean crew. We preserved independence by holding range narrow and narrative lucid. We never padded to twenty stock units to feign mass. We carried pointed care for eruptions and their aftermath. I aim for a seventy to seventy five percent margin since stores may claim up to fifty percent of price, and such arithmetic informs all calls. You cannot dose pricey herbals richly through a sprawling set and endure that division. Hence we select scant formulas, legible volumes like four point three fluid ounces, and reliable staples we can back. Independent status is not perpetual tininess. It means choices defensible at breadth.

A UCLA summer accelerator and a farmers market table came before the Target Takeoff accelerator group in April 2018. What did fingertip selling teach your hands about formula and naming that still guides you?

I joined a summer accelerator program at my university, and that shift from a farmers market table proved hugely useful. Across a market counter insight arrives quickly. A visitor lifts the jar, inhales, wonders about sting, wonders about traces. No slogan can shield you. That season taught me to hold titles legible and rituals brief. Earth communicates its deed. Honey Kojic communicates its contents and intent. I also absorbed focus on a single outlet at once. We entered Urban Outfitters first, then Target efforts, then a deliberate Ulta opening. Expansion moved stepwise without one lone breakout instant. Every phase demanded sharper labels, tighter tallies and clearer replies to lived queries. I still blend with that countertop in view. When an ingredient defies a one sentence account to a nineteen year old, it likely lacks a seat in that blend.

You grew to one point seven million dollars bootstrapped before a two million dollar raise from the New Voices Fund in 2022, and you have always planned to sell Rosen on about a five year timeline. What does designing toward a handoff alter in daily texture and assortment calls?

I have always known I intend to sell Rosen. That phrasing sounds stark, yet it enforces candor. Self funding toward one point seven million dollars instilled rigor. Securing two million dollars from the New Voices Fund afforded room for mindful scale. A five year frame directs attention to returning purchasers, tidy books and recipes a later steward can reproduce well. I avoid chasing solitary virality. I pursue replenishment. Earth and Moonlight replenish since they suit everyday living. Honey Kojic and Super Smoothie replenish since traces demand persistent tending. Afterwards I founded Flora Studios in Austin, a blending and production house for rising BIPOC labels, after witnessing how tough compact batches are to site. Whether Rosen manufactures there or elsewhere, the venture sharpened my demands around tallies, evaluation and documentation. Designing toward sale equals designing toward endurance. When the line can speak without my narration, my task is done.

Closing note from the desk

What lingers is the tactility. Martin talks like a maker who learned beside a market stall and carried that direct touch into countrywide doors. She never vows flawless skin. She vows a steady hand for melanated skin that erupts, with herbs picked for texture and task plus tested support in the base.

ROSEN Skincare sought to refresh a wall that had stalled for a decade. It managed through spare recipes, present faces and faithful empties, from a clay rinse to a feather moisturizer to honeyed glow. That practice persists in Austin, where bench scale care meets broad shelf fact.

Product spotlight

Earth Clearing Cleanser, $18.99 for 4.3 fl oz, remains the everyday rinse for slick, spot prone complexions. Fuller’s earth clay assists in lifting surplus oil as zinc oxide, tea tree and niacinamide encourage a tidier, settled look. Massage across damp skin dawn and dusk and wash fully before cream.

Honey Kojic Illuminating Cleanser, $18.99 for 4.3 fl oz, serves as the glow wash for the look of traces and blotchy tone. Honey cushions and brings ease while kojic acid encourages a brighter impression through regular use. Massage for thirty seconds once per day, wash fully and layer cream plus daytime SPF.