When walking into the skincare aisle, you’re often bombarded with mass-produced products in every color and packaging imaginable, making decisions difficult.
But when you come across a natural, locally-produced skincare brand, the decision becomes a little simpler.
Skincare brand N8iV Beauty recently won Allure Magazine’s “2025 Best of Beauty” award, making them the first Indigenous-owned cosmetic brand to be honored this way in the beauty industry.
The founder, Ruth-Ann Thorn, is Luiseña; she has lived on the Rincon Indian Reservation, but her family also has roots in the La Jolla Indian Reservation.
“I didn’t really start coming back to the reservation until I was a teenager,” Thorn said. “I’m one of those Indians that straddle two worlds. I’ve been in the Western culture outside of the reservation, and I’ve been in the reservation.
“I’d say in the last 10 years, I’ve been immersed back into my native culture.”
Thorn’s mission in creating her brand was to not only provide healthy and non-toxic products, but also to remind people that beauty can be accomplished without cosmetic enhancements.
“What I’m trying to do is not only reconnect people with nature, but reconnect them with the mindset that they can be uniquely an individual,” Thorn said. “The skincare that I’m bringing is to nurture that individuality, not to change it.”
Using natural ingredients was crucial to their product, said Thorn.
“The physical body is very important to Native people, because we feel like it’s the vessel that carries us through this existence while we’re on the planet. So we take really good care of it, you know, by nurturing it.”
Their products are rooted in local plants, such as oak.
“Our primary ingredient is acorn oil,” she said. “Acorn is something that California natives existed on for a food supply, and then the oil is really nourishing the skin.
“It was actually used more as a plant medicine to heal the skin,” she added.
To gather the acorn oil for her products, Thorn visits the La Jolla reservation every year.
“We’re getting ready to gather, actually next month, and we’ll get as much of the acorn as we need, then that acorn is pressed on the reservation for every con of the oil,” Thorn said.
One of her products that uses the acorn oil is an exfoliant called Móyla Moon Polish, which retails for around $80. Móyla is the Luiseño word for moon.
Allure will celebrate their “Best in Beauty” winners at an event on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at Chelsea Industrial in New York City.
More information on N8iV Beauty can be found here.
