Pregnancy and motherhood bring no shortage of decisions, from what to eat and what medications to take to which household products are safe to use. The mental load can feel relentless. Aegean H. Chan, a dermatologist and dermatopathologist, doesn’t want skincare to become another item on the list.
A mom to three children under age seven, Chan experienced a second-trimester miscarriage in 2020. While trying to get pregnant again, she became frustrated with the products crowding her bathroom shelves and anxious about which belonged in her routine.
“If I’m feeling this overwhelmed and fearful, how is the average woman navigating this without my level of expertise?” she says. “How is she going about this life-changing phase and figuring out what products to use?”
Drawing on both that experience and her dermatology practice, Chan realized mothers don’t have the luxury of researching every ingredient or following 10-step routines. Yet they still care about their skin and value the ritual of skincare. After coming up empty-handed in her search for a brand that addressed those needs, she created More Than Nine. Launching today after seven years in development, the self-funded brand cost around $1 million to bring to market and is starting with a tightly edited, clinically grounded skincare line for pregnancy, postpartum and beyond.
“The problem we’re solving for is the decision fatigue of modern motherhood,” says Chan. “Tons of my patients and friends would tell me it’s on their to-do lists to figure out what skincare to use, but then also ask me to text them what to use.” She adds, “Skincare has evolved to feel like homework…When you’re a mother, you have this extra layer of mom guilt and anxiety. It can be almost paralyzing for women when they’re trying to make decisions for their young children, for their own bodies, for their families.”
Chan believes the best way to reduce skincare overwhelm is to start with the essentials, and More Than Nine’s debut collection reflects that philosophy. It comprises four products—a creamy cleanser, a multi-use balm, a gentle powder exfoliant and a lightweight moisturizer—priced from $18 to $29. The Take a Sec Cleanser is formulated to melt away makeup and daily grime with 15% of glycerin, apricot kernel oil and other skin barrier-friendly ingredients. It underwent ocular irritant testing to ensure a lower potential for irritation and is housed in an airless pump that can be pumped with one hand.
“You’re holding a baby, you’re running around, you just can’t have jar skincare,” says Chan. “I didn’t want the brand to be another decision.”
“The problem we’re solving for is the decision fatigue of modern motherhood.”
Rounding out the debut collection are The Look Alive Exfoliator, a gentle powder formula designed for everyday use; The Go-To Moisturizer, which provides lightweight, grease-free hydration; and The Everything Is Fine Balm, a multi-use product intended to soothe dry nipples, lips and sensitive skin.
Originally, Chan wanted the balm to be based on vegetable butters, a familiar favorite among mothers, but ultimately concluded they fell short. “Vegetable butters don’t have the same occlusive properties,” she explains. Instead, the brand opted for purified medical-grade lanolin, which performs more like an ointment without a clinical feel.
A bonus product, The You Did It Bag, priced at $65, was inspired by what Chan needed most during her second pregnancy. It includes a pouch, four products, wipes and a headband. The pouch is produced by Workshelter, a social enterprise in India that specializes in fair-wage employment and skills training for women.
“I began making these kits for my friends, filled with all the skincare women need immediately after giving birth,” says Chan. “Sometimes we would have been in bed for like 36 hours. This kit will help women feel cared for.”
Chan acknowledges More Than Nine is entering a market where other brands touch pieces of what it’s trying to address. She sees the landscape generally dividing into five categories: pregnancy-safe brands, baby brands that treat mothers as an afterthought, motherhood brands that present an idealized version of parenting, clean brands that lean into maternal marketing, often with fear-based messaging, and sterile clinical brands.
She says, “What doesn’t exist is a brand that has genuine dermatologic expertise at the founder level, with formulations that are specifically designed for the full arc of what women go through in motherhood.”
“We want to grow at a pace the brand can sustain.”
Manufactured in New Jersey, More Than Nine is launching direct-to-consumer and on Amazon and TikTok Shop. Using Instagram group messages, it will allow insiders to connect with Chan. Offline, More Than Nine plans to host community events at local mom-and-baby retailers.
The brand aims to generate more than $1 million in first-year sales. “We don’t want to scale for scale’s sake,” says Chan. “We want to grow at a pace the brand can sustain.”
Testing and claims substantiation presented challenges in the development process. Chan initially didn’t realize she could request a sensitive skin panel as part of the Human Repeated Insult Patch Test, prompting the company to repeat the testing to better reflect the population it was designing for. Although the additional work extended development by several months, she wasn’t willing to take a shortcut.
More Than Nine is already working on future products, including a hyperpigmentation treatment, blemish cream and sunscreen. Alongside future product launches, the brand plans to expand into boutiques and eventually larger chains such as Target. “We want to be where moms are,” says Chan. “It’s about reducing the effort that moms have to put into accessing the brand.”
Education is a core pillar of More Than Nine’s strategy. The brand’s website features a knowledge portal entitled “Is This Okay?” with questions Chan has received from patients and friends. Examples of the questions it addresses are: Why is my skin breaking out during pregnancy? What sunscreen can I use on my baby? Can I get Botox injections and breastfeed? Are chemical sunscreens OK during pregnancy?
“When I was going through it, there wasn’t one single place to find reliable information about skincare in any of the motherhood stages,” says Chan. “‘Is This Okay?’ looks to fill that gap.”
The brand’s name reflects Chan’s view that caring for mothers shouldn’t be confined to pregnancy alone. Instead, she sees it as encompassing the entire reproductive journey, from IVF through postpartum and into motherhood. “I didn’t want to neglect women going through IVF,” she says. “You feel like a mother, even if your child is not here yet.”
