In the realm of beauty and wellness, for many consumers it can feel as though bettering your skin has to come at a cost. Be it unsafe ingredients or unpleasant experiences with use, there’s often a sacrifice to be made. However, for content creator, and now founder, Morgan Brown, ‘beauty without compromise’ is the new standard she’s ushering in with the launch of her health-focused skincare brand, June Skin.
A beauty girl since birth, and OG influencer, defining Brown as a mere guru would be a disservice. She’s a true expert, using science-backed research and testing to build her brand, as she has spent the past three years in R&D before releasing her first product. This very commitment to proving what actually works has been integral to her rise and longevity within the industry.
If you were active in the beauty blogging space in the 2010s, you’ll probably recognize her as ItsHeyMorgan from YouTube. There, her personal experiments delivered with her insatiable personality and earnest vulnerability helped her amass a following of over 500,000 subscribers. Whether it was challenging herself to drink a gallon of water a day or comedic skits showcasing the perils of girlhood, connecting with her audience is what fulfilled Brown.
It was through her journey both on social media and healing from the unexpected loss of her father in June of 2017, that she learned how health and wellness are essential to living a truly fulfilling life. “I would love for all beauty consumers to really champion their health first and watch that transformation” she tells ESSENCE. This sentiment stems from how she learned caring for herself and her loved ones became vital as she navigated grief. “After he passed, I really dove deep into wellness and saw my beauty routine transition to more of a ‘health survival routine.’ It wasn’t so much about the products, but it was about the ritual being a marker in my day as I was going through grief,” she shares.
These small daily acts–like skincare, movement, and nutrition–became essential to grounding herself back into who she was and who her father raised her to be, even without his physical presence. “I watched my dad care for everybody around him and I saw the good that came from that,” she shares. He taught her that integrity in your character and work was the foundation of any successful business. As an entrepreneur himself, his lessons in love and labour instilled in Brown the commitment to service and community that guided her social media endeavors and now her brand.
The idea of starting her own business is one she’d had for quite some time as she leveraged her first-hand experience in content creation and online community building during her undergraduate degree at the Wharton School of Business. But it wasn’t until her healing journey that she realized what her true passion and purpose would be in starting her own brand and eventually the core ethos of what she’s building with June Skin.
“Beauty is a routine that makes you feel good, it’s not just how you look,” she shares. “Our emotional health and mental health are deeply tied to our physical health,” At every level of her business, she’s focused on more than the aesthetic effects of her products, but the internal transformation where healthy, resilient skin shines from within because of how it makes you feel. At the forefront of June Skin is a deep investment in the personhood of users where the mental and emotional well-being are the first step in any effective routine.
June Skin is a health-first beauty brand where the safety of the products doesn’t come at the expense of performance. The name, June, came to her as she realized that was the month her entire life changed. The process of building her brand has been a love letter to the man who made her the woman, community builder, and business owner she is today.
Having struggled with sensitive, reactive skin for years, she couldn’t find a product on the market that met her standards for clean ingredients and performed at the level she had come to expect. “I was like wow, we all need some type of support for our skin that isn’t going to cause any further reactions, but could truly nourish it and help sustain it and strengthen it.”
Her debut product, The Essential Cream, is a twice daily moisturizer designed to protect against exposure-driven stressors and strengthen the skin’s barrier over time. She’s partnered with researchers and scientists for the past three years to develop a formula with skin compatible ingredients that work synergistically both with each other and the body’s internal systems.
The lightweight, deeply hydrating and nourishing cream has antioxidants, squalene, and ceramides. Additionally, it has a unique blend of anti-inflammatory, microbiome-supporting probiotics to restore and fortify the skin. “This barrier repair cream is for my sensitive skin girls who can’t necessarily use all of these high-performing, but often irritating, actives in their routines,” she explains.
My Experience Testing June Skin
Brown first shared June Skin with me in early 2023 and I have been eagerly anticipating its launch ever since. Having followed her YouTube content in the mid 2010’s and trusted her as a skin and health expert, I knew any product she put out into the world would be created with the utmost intention and highest standards for efficacy.
In preparation for this piece, I tried June Skin first for two weeks and subsequently for an additional six weeks to see firsthand how it would perform. I mean this by no exaggeration–it is one of the most transformative skincare products I have ever tried, and not just superficially. Within the first use, my dry, sensitive skin felt balanced and nourished in a way I had never experienced before. It gave my skin a blurred effect as if I had applied a filter to my face in the mirror. With continued use, my skin’s resilience only grew and irritation all but disappeared, alleviating an underlying stress I was unaware was so heavily influencing my day-to-day skin care routine.
Whereas before I was hesitant to try new products, knowing they would likely result in some form of irritation, with The Essential Cream, I had a confidence and assurance in my skin’s health and strength that was so freeing. Since discontinuing use after the trial period and returning to my previous routine, I have been anxious to get my hands on the cream again, though I am still benefiting from its long-term strengthening and repairing effects. If my skin could transform so drastically in 6 weeks, I am excited to experience what long-term use would reveal for my skin.
There are creators and then there are true community builders and visionaries, Brown is the rare combination of the three. If her first product is any indication of where she is headed, she has created with June Skin a brand that rivals many of the tried and true leaders within the industry. Where she stands out goes far beyond her innovative formulations and their transformative results, but extends to her mission that cares for the heart of her customers as much as their skin. June Skin is a tribute to her humble beginnings building her online community, and, more importantly, the legacy of her father whose love lives on in the work she is committed to every day.