Meet Nikkia Jackson of N8 Beauty in Mid City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nikkia Jackson.

Nikkia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
N8 Beauty was founded on a single premise, to create zero barriers in clean but effective skinclusivity.

My name is Nikkia Jackson, and I am N8 Beauty’s Founder and CEO… a self-professed passport stamp collector, food and wine lover, book enthusiast, and overall lover of life. My love of travel, music, and culture has sent me across many seas exploring beauty. My long-standing career has been in media and entertainment, but my heart, passion, and purpose have been steeped in beauty, natural beauty, for as long as I can remember.

Growing up, my skin was relatively normal, with minimal to no activity. That all changed in my mid-twenties. Now, plagued with acne-prone skin, I was unaware of how to solve the problem and its effect on my self-image. Desperate to find a solution, I was led down a road littered with harsh acne products, chemical burns, ineffective dermatological treatments, and frustration. All of which turned my one problem into several. Treating my now hypersensitive skin with aggressive lasers, and direct injections exacerbated hyperpigmentation, scarring, and flaky dry patches.

It was then I started doing research and realized majority dermatological methods were not meant to address the unique challenges of melanin-rich skin. A recent 2017 study published by American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology confirmed that women of color were disproportionately exposed to toxic chemicals in beauty products compared with white women. My discovery of a black dermatologist was the tipping point of change. She understood and catered to varying skin tones, and that finally allowed my skin on a path to “Level Set”. However, even the product ingredients recommended to treat my skin gave me pause.

Enduring intense and traumatic reactions to traditional acne treatments made me increasingly interested in holistic health and wellness. I cut chemicals out of my hair, moved to Paris for two years, and rediscovered clean wellness and beauty. After relocating from my hometown of Brooklyn, NY to Paris, France. It was there, in the midst of my discovery that the idea for the formulation of my hero product, N8 Beauty non-foaming Gentle Cream Cleanser was born.

As I began learning more, I believed there were cleaner, more holistic ways to yield greater results using effective, plant-based ingredients that promote balance and healing. The principle of balance stood out to me as the undercurrent to harmony in nature, I sought to mimic that in my own brand philosophy by infusing ingredients like Shea butter to naturally combat discoloration and blemishes. My ideology to formulate safe, yet effective products became the foundation of my brand, and all the products birthed within it.

Upon returning to the U.S., I settled in sunny Los Angeles and immediately began work on N8 Beauty (pronounced: innate). In the Fall of 2018, N8 Beauty was launched as a plant-based, vegan skincare line that specializes in providing cruelty-free, non-toxic beauty products specifically formulated with all skin tones in mind (skin-clusivity), N8 Beauty is my take on beauty, realized in nature.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has not, lol! Being an entrepreneur means you have to be prepared to fight while you build. Facing unforeseen challenges that will inevitably come up, both within business and your personal life, will absolutely put your resilience to the test.

When I originally came up with the idea to start a skincare company, I was living in Paris, France as an expat for almost two years. Feeling creative burnout, I left the States to be challenged and inspired again and moving to a country where you don’t know anyone or speak the language gave me that creative adrenaline rush I needed to be intentional about my life again. But by the time I moved back to the States in 2015 for a family emergency, I would face the most challenging season of my life, over the next three years, I would lose the stepfather who raised me to a stroke, relocate from New York to LA, lose my mother to cancer three weeks after being diagnosed, my best friend since the 2nd grade to complications of sickle cell and become pregnant with my first child by 2017. Through the flux, the grief and excitement of becoming a new mom, I was still building one brick at a time with as much as I could.

By the time I soft-launched in the Fall of 2018, I was postpartum, working a demanding full-time job and reeling from the losses of the last two years. All the energy I had went into launching but I had no idea what to do after. And I was exhausted. The constant grind of the past several years caught up to me and laid me out with a 104 temperature unable to get off the floor with a baby crying in the next room. It was then I realized I needed to practice what I was preaching and made myself regroup, re-center, and put my oxygen mask on first. I slowed my pace considerably at the top of 2019 to heal myself.

I also realized I was in a new industry doing something completely out of my wheelhouse and I didn’t fully trust myself yet. I spent a lot of money outsourcing to people I thought knew better than me only to realize I had good instincts and could figure it out on my own if I just had the courage. That experience has taught me to walk in the truth I am communicating to my beauty enthusiast tribe – everything you need, you already possess.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My ethos is Everything we need to have balance and allow our bodies the space to heal itself, we possess. I believe we don’t have to sacrifice efficacy for results just because it’s clean beauty.

N8 Beauty provides high performing, plant-based skincare products for all skin types. Our Gentle Cream Cleanser is formulated as a 2 -in -1 product, with a non-foaming formula infused with Shea butter and amino acids, which allows your follow up moisturizer to be a compliment yet not a necessity.

N8 Beauty represents an informed and empowered customer by offering/crafting gentle, yet highly effective products that help customers feel confident with their natural beauty.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Living in LA has given me the opportunity to build a business and a family here in a way that could have never happened anywhere else.

Just the ability to go down to the beach and stand by the ocean or hike to the mountains helps put your problems in order, feel the continuity of life and create through it. Also, being surrounded by amazing, like-minded people with the same passion to go after what’s inside them helps when you’re reaching for motivation. But the city itself has been super supportive as well, with programs like Pacific Coast Regional that offer support and knowledge for small business owners like myself, they’ve made the journey that much more possible.

Contact Info:

• Address: N8 Beauty
  4858 W. Pico Blvd.
  Los Angeles, CA 90019
• Website: www.n8beauty.com
• Phone: 9292620061
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @n8beauty
• Facebook: @n8beauty

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