The Founder of Rosen Skincare Shares the Importance of an Entrepreneurial Spirit
Jamika Martin grew up surrounded by entrepreneurs; it's not surprise she chose a similar path.
WHAT COLOR DEFINES JAMIKA MARTIN?
I would say my two colors I align with are yellow and dark olive green. I’m generally a pretty positive person, happy, optimistic, and caring, and those are things I assign to the color yellow. For green, outwardly, people think I'm more chill I think. In general, I’m pretty calm and relaxed, but people think I’m cooler than I actually am sometimes.
Jamika Martin grew up on the central coast of California in Paso Robles — an area she describes as small and “quaint” — where Martin was always surrounded by members of her family.
“A few generations on my mom and dad's side lived around us,” Martin tells Palette.
Martin, 24, stayed in the area from kindergarten to high school and then enrolled in 2014 at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she studied business and world economics. During the next few years, Martin honed in on what is growing to be a rather successful business.
“I was learning and meeting so many people at UCLA and had always been big on entrepreneurship. My dad and my mom are service-based entrepreneurs themselves,” Martin says. “They did things like landscaping and I realized in college I needed to follow in their footsteps.”
After graduating from UCLA in 2017, that same year in June, Martin launched her skincare brand Rosen.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE WITHIN THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY?
“I have always been relatively interested in beauty but not necessarily a die-hard fan. I started dealing with acne in fifth grade and then from the fifth grade on [acne] was a sure deal for me. That pushed me into this space of knowing I had to do more than my friends. I had to think of skincare choices and makeup more than my friends.”
WHAT DOES ROSEN MEAN?
“My middle name is Rose, my grandpa’s middle name is Rose, and my dad’s middle name is Rose; I always knew I wanted to have Rose in the name of my brand. When I was doing an entrepreneurial course at UCLA, I remember doing a group project in class and I asked if they could use Rosen as a test for the assignment. I utilized their resources to tweak my brand and make it make sense. It started out as Rose Naturals with an indie feel but then we shortened it from Rose Naturals to Rosen. I loved how unisex and fresh it was.”
WHERE DID YOU START IN CREATING PRODUCTS FOR ROSEN?
“I started mixing products and making stuff in my dorm room. I would send samples to friends and people around me. I’d Google where to get certain ingredients, packaging, and what I needed to know about formulating — which I learned from different courses online. I would do random DIYs but then tweak them so the product was more stable.
Preserving products for stability took a while to get a grasp on. I always like to compare it to the essence of baking where it's a recipe you're following, and once you get comfortable you can tweak it and go your own way. It also took me a while to get the marketing right. Between June to September online, we were not making any money. When we started reaching out to influencers was when we popped up.”
With COVID-19 disproportionately affecting Black Americans at higher rates and the ongoing calls against racial injustice, one of the forms in which Black people worldwide have turned to reclaim power has been through buying Black. This means buying from Black-owned and/or led companies and supporting Black creators.
WHY ARE BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES IMPORTANT TO YOU?
“With everything going on, I think it's important for Black people to find different places of power such as entrepreneur spaces, spaces for beauty, spaces in tech, and so much more — it’s so important for us to drive forward.
It’s good to retain ownership too. We have so much to bring to the market and we've also not been thought of as much within the markets, but now it's good to go ahead and [reclaim what we are owed in those spaces].
But, we should not only create products that work and cater to Black people but products and brands that work overwhelmingly for everyone. People always ask me, ‘Is this product for only Black people?’ and no it is not. We need Black founders and leaders overall and not just segmented into a niche market because of their skin tone.”
WERE THERE ANY CHALLENGES DUE TO YOU BEING A BLACK WOMAN?
“The main thing I saw, in the beauty space specifically, was assuming my products are only made for Black people because I am a Black person. Black people are not the only ones who need moisturizers and vitamin C.
Whether it's seeing me at the market and overlooking my products or just only thinking we are for Black people because we have people of color predominantly on our social media feeds, it limits us. For instance, it limits opportunities, partnerships, and access. Whatever partnerships we would get, people who are not Black founders, those partners get more because they are thought to cater to all audiences — [simply because] they are not Black-owned.”
In its three years, Rosen has amassed a large following on social media and has secured a space on Urban Outfitters. As Martin’s products get into the hands of more consumers, she looks ahead.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE TO SEE THE BRAND GO IN THE FUTURE?
“I really, really want to innovate the acne space. I'm passionate about the thought of changing the way masks and acne care aisles look for those younger people, like myself in fifth grade, whose first experience with acne was rather difficult. I want to innovate that and get Rosen into the shelves of such stores like CVS, Walgreens, Target, and more.”