Today we’d like to introduce you to Moriah Jacobs.
Moriah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I think a lot of people expect a founder story to start with the product. Mine really starts with exhaustion.
I spent nearly a decade in sports, three years at ESPN and then six at the NBA, working in marketing partnerships. From the outside it looked like the dream, and in a lot of ways it was. But I was tired in a way that sleep didn’t fix. And underneath that was something quieter: the unconscious bias that can come with working in corporate America when you don’t look a certain way. It’s rarely loud. It’s the subtle sense of having to work twice as hard to be seen half as clearly. Over time, that wears on you.
So I started building something that affirmed us instead. Late at night, in my tiny kitchen, after work. Researching ingredients, taking classes, learning from a lot of failed batches. That’s where Sol Butter and Sol Crème were born, made by hand and honestly made by heart. Every formula and every word of the brand language exists to rewrite how melanin-rich skin gets talked about and cared for. We’re not here to brighten or correct anything. We’re here to celebrate it. Glow, not guilt.
The turning point came on my exact six-year anniversary at the NBA, January 18, 2024. I walked away from my corporate career with no job lined up, just a brand I’d been quietly building and a faith in myself I’d finally earned. My husband and I chose Dallas intentionally and have been building the life we actually wanted ever since.
What I’ve learned through all of it has become the thing I care about most: self-care isn’t a luxury or a trend. It’s a discipline. A rhythm of work and rest. That’s really the whole idea behind what I’m building now, what I call the business of self-care. Because the soft life isn’t soft. I’m just learning to meet myself in the middle.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Honestly, no. It’s been anything but smooth, and I’ve made peace with that.
One of the earliest gut punches was a crowdfunding campaign that fell well short of its goal. When you pour yourself into something and ask people to believe in it with you, coming up short stings in a way that’s hard to describe. But it taught me early that belief in the vision had to start with me, and couldn’t depend on anyone else showing up first.
Then came the part nobody warns you about: vendors. Broken agreements, partnerships that didn’t hold, people who said one thing and did another. There were stretches where I had to teach myself formulation from scratch, not because I wanted to, but because no one else was going to do it for me. Every batch that failed was money and time I didn’t always have.
And underneath the business struggles was the personal one. Walking away from a stable, impressive career with no safety net is terrifying. There were quiet moments of doubt where I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake. Building a brand while also rebuilding my own sense of rest and identity, at the same time, was its own kind of hard.
But here’s what I’ve come to believe: every setback became a turning point. Every one of them made me more capable than I was before. The failed batches made me a better formulator. The broken vendor deals made me a sharper businesswoman. The burnout that pushed me out of corporate became the entire foundation of what I teach now. None of it was smooth. All of it was necessary.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
At the heart of it, I make body care for melanin-rich skin. Sol Butter and Sol Crème are my two flagship products, both handcrafted and custom-blended, and each fragrance carries its own story. Melanin in the Sun is warm and radiant. Melanin by the Sea is coastal and grounding, tied to my time at Hampton. Melanin in Love is about returning to yourself. They’re made to celebrate every hue, never to brighten or correct.
But if I’m honest about what I actually do, the products are only half of it. What I really specialize in is something I call the business of self-care. The idea that self-care isn’t a luxury or a Sunday afternoon treat. It’s a discipline. A rhythm of work and rest, a way of stewarding your body and your energy so you can build something that lasts. Hueman Sol is the physical expression of that philosophy. The products are the tools a disciplined, well-cared-for life actually requires.
What I’m most proud of is that I built it by hand and by heart, through every failed batch and every setback, and it still stands for exactly what I intended. It celebrates Black women first, and welcomes every hue in.
What sets me apart is that I’m not asking anyone to choose between softness and ambition. So much of the wellness world tells you to slow down and rest. So much of the hustle world tells you to grind harder. Very few people hold the middle with any conviction, and even fewer do it from where I’m standing, as a Black woman who has lived both sides. That’s my whole message. The soft life isn’t soft. Meet me in the middle.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
For me it’s less one single memory and more a feeling: discovering my creativity and letting my imagination come to life.
So much of my childhood was spent outside and in motion. Playing with the neighborhood kids on the weekends, or in those small pockets of time at the bus stop before school. We made our own worlds. I’ll never forget that a group of us once created a little cemetery for all the perished animals we’d find around the neighborhood. Looking back, it was such a tender, imaginative thing for kids to do, this instinct to honor something and to create meaning out of it.
Nature was a big part of that too. I felt most myself when I was immersed in it, paying attention to the small things most people walked past.
Self-expression showed up early as well. I was a dancer and a cheerleader through middle school and high school, and those years taught me how good it feels to express yourself fully and unapologetically with your whole body and energy. That instinct never really left me.
And then there’s the thread that’s followed me my whole life: visual arts and capturing moments. I was always the one with a digital camera in hand, all through high school and college, documenting everything. At the time it was just instinct. It’s a little surreal to see how directly that plays out now, because that same impulse is exactly what I do as a content creator today. The kid with the camera just never put it down.
I think that’s the quiet through-line of who I am. The creativity, the imagination, the self-expression, the urge to make beauty and meaning out of ordinary moments. It started long before Hueman Sol, and in a lot of ways, the brand is just the grown-up version of it.
Pricing:
- Sol Butter: $35
- Sol Crème: $34
- Sol Butter Mini: $18
- Sol Crème Mini: $16
- Sol Butter Mini Melanin Trio: $48, Sol Crème Mini Melanin Trio: $42
Contact Info:
- Website: https://huemansol.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hueman.sol/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuemanSol
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HelloHuemanSol
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hueman.sol
