We’re in the business of doing good for our community and the world around us.

Our mission is to help women feel more confident through their skin. As we work to build our platform to facilitate our purpose, we’re hyper focused on ensuring our community purpose is continually met by providing homeless women with our SkinConfidence™ Kits. Our SkinConfidence™ kits elevate the mood, confidence, and perceived self-worth of women without housing—which can be the catalyst needed to overcome homelessness.

We launched our buy one donate one skincare products on November 1, 2022 in honor of our founder's father's birthday. 

Protea, Inc. is a 100% woman-owned business. Our industry leading manufacturing partner is proudly located in the US. Using solar power, our manufacturer partner formulates and makes Protea skincare products that are vegan and leaping bunny certified cruelty-free.

We were started in 2020 to support women who were looking for one-on-one skincare recommendations. Based on the scalable feedback we received, we are expanding the platform to service spas and independent estheticians who want to reach existing and new customers via virtual consultations without the hassle of conducting marketing, running a website, and conducting business development.

What you can expect from our company.    

• Transparency in our business practices         
• Product and ingredient education
• Respect for your time and money

A Letter From Our Founder    

Those who know me personally know I tend to have a lot of words, so buckle up!

While other 16 year olds were getting their first jobs at restaurants, malls, and movie theaters, I convinced my local Med Spa to hire me as their office manager. Why? Because at that age, it was a dream job. I had responsibilities. I did everything from submitting insurance claims to ordering products, managing schedules, and implementing marketing campaigns. And while, yes, I may have been in it for the skincare discounts (no influencer codes back in the MySpace and early FaceBook days!), it still awakened something in me.

I wanted to help people. I started volunteering as the night shift ER Patient Advocate at my local hospital. At my high school, I joined clubs and organized community events. I joined “Peer,” which felt like the perfect fit: a select group of students who worked with teachers to make a more inclusive high school experience for students. As someone who was heavily bullied, helping mitigate it happening to others meant the world to me.

Leaving high school I knew my two passions – lifting others up through volunteerism, and skincare. Then, fate intervened in an unexpected way. In college, at American University in Washington, D.C. I was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme Disease. I was lucky enough to find a fantastic doctor that mixed Western and Eastern medical practices and put me on a holistic regime.

As a result of this, I started learning about the ingredients within my skincare products. I started making a coconut oil-based body balm so I knew exactly what I was putting on my body. And it was excellent. Sure enough, word got around, so I started selling the body balm in mini mason jars to friends at class.

I traveled, I worked, I healed. After moving back to Northern Virginia from Colorado Springs in 2017 —where I had volunteered each week at a low-barrier women’s shelter— something stuck in my mind that I just couldn’t shake. When we would get skincare supplies donated for the women, their spirits instantly lifted. The women started talking and connecting about what they all had in common: their skin. It was amazing to see.

I continued to research skincare and became the skincare guru for my family and friends. And, soon enough, others. In the summer of 2020–the peak of COVID—I made a website so people could book and pay for virtual sessions with me. I found that clients would re-book based on lifestyle changes, major life events, wanting a basic skincare routine, and other changing skincare goals. My “side hustle” soon outgrew my free time. There came a point where I had too many virtual skincare clients to keep up with while caring for my new baby and maintaining a full-time, executive-level business development job. I started looking for a mainstream solution that delivered the same personal and unbiased support I was providing, so I could recommend it to my clients.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find virtual solutions that weren’t unaffiliated with products, ie. “Book a session… and then receive personal curated skincare products that the company sells.” And, let’s face it—usually that’s expensive and not fully tailored to each individual’s needs.

As a result, Protea (my third baby) was born. My personal life mantra is “I want women to be more confident because I was there.” Protea supports both a woman’s skincare confidence and estheticians’ business confidence.

Welcome to Protea. We’re happy you're here!

– Mackenzie Jorns