There is a moment many women know intimately, even if they've never said it out loud. You're standing in front of the mirror, your skin doing something it has never done before, breaking out and drying out simultaneously, rough in places it used to be smooth, dull where it used to glow, and you think: Uh, what the hell is happening to me?
For Marsha Guerrier, that moment became a movement.
"I just dealt with my crackly skin," she recalls. "I thought it was normal."
Guerrier is the founder of YvaMarie, a plant-based skin care line rooted in Haitian heritage beauty. But before the brand, before the formulas, before the botanical formula science that now anchors every product in the line, there was a woman aching to learn more about hormonal skin care after 40. She had spent years putting her skin last, and who finally decided she was done.
What Is Hormonal Skin?
Hormonal skin refers to changes like breakouts, dryness, and sensitivity caused by fluctuations postpartum or during perimenopause or menopause.
Common symptoms include:
When Life Leaves No Room for Your Skin
Guerrier's path to YvaMarie was not a straight line. It was a decade of detours that most women will recognize.
She was navigating IVF and the hormonal shifts that came with it. She became a single mother. She was running a full-time business, HerSuiteSpot, her women's entrepreneurship platform, while holding down a career in fintech. Her skin, textured and reactive and crying out for attention, simply wasn't top of mind for her.
"My face and my appearance and my skin was not a priority to me," she says plainly. "I was a new single mom, running a full-time business and a full-time job. I just didn't have time."
When she did turn her attention to skin care for women over 40, the results were discouraging. She tried a name-brand vitamin C serum, her skin burned. She reached for trending actives, more reactions. The products the beauty industry had designed for women "her age" were either too aggressive for her sensitive skin or simply not made with her in mind at all.
"I have rough skin, hyperpigmentation, and nothing worked for me," she says. "I finally got to a point where I thought: I need to find something that actually works. And when I went to find it, I couldn't. So I made it myself."
How YvaMarie Created a Better Skin Care Solution For Women Over 40
The seed of YvaMarie was actually planted years earlier, in Guerrier's kitchen.
When her son Joshua was born with eczema, she started formulating his skin care herself. The ingredient list? Shea butter sourced on a trip to Africa, sulfur for inflammation, and slow-infused botanical oils, all blended into what the family lovingly called "Joshy Poo lotion." It worked. His skin healed. And when he outgrew the need for it, she stopped making it, not knowing those kitchen experiments were the beginning of something far larger.
Then, she lost her job in fintech.
"Most people would think, more time for the two businesses I already have," she says with a laugh. "But I went down this rabbit hole. I had been connected with manufacturers and chemists through HerSuiteSpot. And I thought, what would it be like if I just did my own line?"
What it would be like, it turned out, was YvaMarie.
The brand's name is itself a piece of inheritance. YvaMarie is a combination of two names, Yva, her grandmother, and Marie, her mother, women whose approach to beauty left an impression that decades couldn't dim.
"Every Sunday, my grandma, my mom, her sisters and my cousins were in the kitchen," Guerrier recalls. "Everyone doing their hair. We had the avocado masks. The mayo and egg masks. My mom was a huge proponent of botanicals and using real Haitian healing properties for the hair, skin and face."
Those memories became the foundation of the brand, and the inspiration behind its scientific approach. Botanical Formula Science™ is at the core of every YvaMarie product, an homage to what Guerrier’s grandmother and mother always understood: that ingredients like avocado, aloe vera, citrus, and nutrient-rich botanical oils are more than tradition, they are proven, effective, and deeply aligned with the needs of evolving skin, especially for women over 40.
"I always knew that the organic, healing oils and products that we used growing up were the foundation," she says.
Best Skincare Routine for Hormonal Skin
YvaMarie is not a brand built for an imagined customer. It is built for the woman Guerrier was at 48 who was overwhelmed, underprioritized, dealing with hormonal skin changes she didn't fully understand, and a beauty market that wasn't built to serve her.
That woman, she says, is everywhere.
Explore the BotanicGlow Collection
As Guerrier describes her: "Someone who is extremely busy. Someone who has neglected herself in many ways and it shows on her skin. Someone dealing with hormonal fluctuations, whether it's postpartum, perimenopause, or menopause. Someone who is trying to reemerge as something new as she approaches the next phases of her life."
The YvaMarie line meets her with a simple three-step routine, cleanser, serum, moisturizer, built around plant-based ingredients that calm inflammation, restore the skin barrier, and deliver results without the reactions. No 10-step routines. No clinical-grade actives that set sensitive skin on fire. No “glass skin” promises designed for someone half her age.
Just healing. Consistency. And the glow that follows.
"I want women to fall in love with their skin again," Guerrier says. "Your skin isn't broken. It's changing. And there's a difference."
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Explore the YvaMarie collection at YvaMarie.com
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