Your Summer Skin Guide: 6 Maui Beauty Brands Worth Knowing
Your summer
skin guide.
6 Maui beauty brands worth knowing. Salt air, strong sun, and the products that handle both beautifully.
Summer on Maui does something to your skin. The salt air dries you out. The sun is relentless — closer to the equator, stronger UV, no mercy. The humidity makes everything feel different. And yet somehow, the women who live here year-round have the most luminous, dewy, alive-looking skin you've ever seen. The secret isn't a 12-step routine. It's knowing what to reach for.
We've been paying attention. Here are six Maui brands — locally made, locally loved, and genuinely worth your time — that belong in your summer rotation.
The women who live here year-round have the most luminous skin you've ever seen. The secret is knowing what to reach for.
— Maui Makai
The Edit
6 Maui brands.
All summer essentials.
01
Mukama Botanica
High Vibe Face Mist · mukamabotanica.com
🌺 Everything Must Go — 40% off sitewide, applied at checkoutFull transparency: Mukama Botanica was founded by the founder of Maui Makai. Which means when we tell you this mist is something special, we're telling you because we believe it — not because we're obligated to.
Mukama Botanica was born from the intersection of Hawaiian healing, Reiki, and a deep belief that what you put on your skin should raise your energy, not just your SPF. As Albert Einstein said — everything is made of energy. The High Vibe Face Mist is exactly that: organic, natural, handmade, and infused with high vibrational botanical ingredients sourced with intention. As seen in Vogue UK and Forbes. Beloved by beauty experts, healers, yogis, and anyone who wants their skincare to feel like a ritual rather than a routine.
Right now there is an everything must go sale — 40% off sitewide, no code needed, automatically applied at checkout. This is the moment to stock up or try it for the first time.
Shop Mukama Botanica →02
Kymberly Marr Cosmetics
Liquid Sunshine Bronzer · makeupandtalenthawaii.com
Kym is a friend and a Maui original — a Kansas girl who landed on this island with $40, a CJ-7 Jeep, and a calling she hadn't fully named yet. Over 25 years of doing makeup for Maui brides and editorial clients, trained by Chanel, Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent, and more, she launched her own vegan, cruelty-free cosmetics line in 2020 — and it is genuinely beautiful.
Her signature style is "your best self" — soft, natural, glowy, beachy-glam. And no product captures that better than the Liquid Sunshine Bronzer with shimmer. It's the summer glow product. The one that makes you look like you just came back from the beach even when you didn't. Reef-safe, clean, Maui-made, and designed by someone who has been making women feel beautiful on this island for decades.
We also love her lip glosses — each one inspired by Hawaiʻi and named accordingly — and her blush, which is perfection.
Shop Kymberly Marr →03
Project Reef
Reef-Safe Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30 & 50 · projectreef.com
Here is something worth knowing about Maui: oxybenzone and octinoxate — two of the most common chemical UV filters in mainstream sunscreen — are banned in Maui County. Not just frowned upon. Banned. Because they are devastating to coral reefs, and Hawaiʻi was the first state in the country to take a stand about it.
Project Reef was built entirely around this mission. Their sunscreens are 100% mineral, zinc oxide-based, Hawaii Reef Act 104 compliant, vegan, and packaged in tubes made from ocean-bound and post-consumer recycled plastic. The SPF 30 is sheer and hydrating with organic shea butter and aloe — no white cast, no chalky finish. The SPF 50 is water resistant for up to 80 minutes. Both are genuinely elegant to wear.
This is the sunscreen to use on Maui. For the reef. For your skin. For both.
Shop Project Reef →04
Maui Babe
Browning Lotion · mauibabe.com
Maui Babe has been a local secret since 1996. Family-owned, family-made, born right here on the island. The Browning Lotion is the original and still the one — a natural tanning accelerant made from an old family recipe packed with Hawaiian ingredients: kukui nut oil, Kona coffee plant extract, aloe, and antioxidant vitamins E, C, and A. It doesn't fake a tan. It accelerates the one you're building in the sun — deeper, faster, more even, more golden.
It smells incredible. It moisturizes. It works. It has been in beach bags on this island for thirty years.
05
To Be Hawaiʻi
Coconut Crème Lip Butter · tobehawaii.com
To Be Hawaiʻi is nestled in the heart of Wailuku, handcrafting skin and body care that feels — genuinely feels — like a vacation. Everything is natural, USDA certified organic where possible, vegan, cruelty-free, and packaged in plastic-free compostable cardboard. The Everything Spray, the award-winning Raw Cacao Mask (2026 Clean Beauty Award winner), the body butters — everything here is worth exploring.
But for summer? Start with the lips. The Coconut Crème Lip Butter is $9.95 of pure happiness — creamy, nourishing, subtly scented like the inside of a fresh coconut, the kind of lip butter you put on and immediately buy three more of for your friends. Made with all natural and organic ingredients. The Lilikoi Citrus and Guava Nectar are also deeply excellent if you want something a little more tropical. All $9.95. All worth it.
Shop To Be Hawaiʻi →06
Whispering Dragonfly
Noni Leaf Skincare Collection · whisperingdragonfly.com
You already know Whispering Dragonfly from our Local's Eye feature — but it belongs here too, because summer on Maui is exactly when you need it most. Founded by Stephanie, a licensed massage therapist and NLP practitioner who was entrusted with a noni leaf protocol passed down by her kahuna on Kauaʻi, every bottle is handmade, blessed, and filled with what she calls the mana of unfolding aloha. The carrier oils are grown on Maui and Kauaʻi. Every leaf is handpicked on specific moon cycles with spiritual permission. You feel all of that the moment you use it.
For summer specifically — the noni leaf oil is the one to know. Noni leaf is a powerful cellular regenerator with deep anti-inflammatory properties, which means it is extraordinary for healing sun burns, calming redness and rosacea, reducing inflammation after too much time in the sun, and restoring skin that's been overexposed. Noni was the only one of the twelve Polynesian canoe plants brought to Hawaiʻi specifically for medicinal purposes. When your skin needs to heal — really heal — this is what you reach for.
The Royal Treatment Mist and the Organic Noni Leaf Remedy in Macadamia are both summer essentials. One spritz of the mist and you'll understand why we've been talking about this brand since the moment we found it standing in the Hawaiian Moons aisle with a little glass bottle in our hand.
Shop Whispering Dragonfly →The Bottom Line
Your skin is going to take on a lot this summer — sun, salt, humidity, more sun. What you put on it matters. These six Maui brands are doing it right: clean ingredients, ethical practices, genuine quality, and real roots in these islands. Support them. Your skin will thank you. And so will the reef. 🌊🤙
"What you put on your skin matters.
These five brands are doing it right."
