About SKM
Sunkissed Mari is a brand that believes beauty can be achieved by using natural and organic ingredients. The founder, Mariatu Savage, grew up using “Madoni” (Shea Butter) and black soap from Sierra Leone to nourish her skin. She wants everyone to shine using these natural ingredients to bring the world a Sunkissed Mari glow. All Sunkissed Mari products are non-toxic and safe for babies.
“A lot of times being a black woman there are certain things we limit ourselves from doing because we see our skin color as a limitation. For instance, I hear women saying things such as “I wont wear this lipstick because I am black; stepping into that role and being as black women is powerful and exactly what the SKM brand is about.”
- Mariatu Savage Founder, Sunkissed Mari Brand”
Welcome to the Sunkissed Mari Brand! The SKM brand is a health and beauty lifestyle brand established in 2018 focused on uplifting and empowering black women and girls to embrace, love and celebrate their melanin power.
The brand is specifically focused on empowering black women to love their skin complexion, inspiring black women to share positive stories of loving their skin whilst embracing their true selves, and providing spaces to uplift black girls to build self-confidence by sharing skin positive stories. The brand focuses on black women and girls ages 12-45, globally and in particular the United States and Sierra Leone, West Africa.
The SKM brand will provide online as well as in person awareness and education talks, workshops, seminars and retreats/summits on the topics of skin color, wellness, beauty and self-confidence.
Recently SKM launched body products as a means to celebrate beautiful skin, provide natural ingredients for your skin!
Mariatu Savage is the founder and curator of the SKM Brand. Born in the early 90’s, she remembers the bullying she experienced as a child because she was a dark skinned girl. In her words she states “I would walk down certain hallways and I didn’t want certain kids to talk about me, I didn’t wear black or brown because I didn’t want to compare my skin color to such colors, I didn’t even want to have a boy friend because of what people will think about me”.
Her heritage as a second generation born Sierra Leonean American also impacts her outlook on life as well as her brand. In 2011, Mariatu went to Sierra Leone on holidays with her mother. During her visit to the local markets, she noticed that many of the market women were selling bleaching creams. This caused her to feel dismayed about how African women viewed their own beauty,“ I felt we were ruined because of a certain image we wanted to attain, we have so much inside of us that can be powerful and we don’t want to embrace it.” From that defining moment, she began reading about melanin and dark skin and in college her transformation occurred. She remembers saying to herself; “Mari you can make a different being that you are of a darker skin complexion and tell your story”. Mari then decided to start taking photos, educating herself on what melanin was, following darker skinned models who had similar stories as she did. It was then she realized that there were women who needed to be motivated and girls who need to hear this story. Her melanin journey and story began, that which is now The Sun Kissed Mari Brand.