The beauty aisle looks a lot more diverse than it did a decade ago, and part of that is thanks to a number of Latinx beauty brands, visionaries, and business owners that have helped build a more inclusive market that celebrates the vibrancy of pan-Latinx culture.
The concept of beauty (or bellezza in Spanish) is integral to the Latinx experience, so it should come as no surprise that Latin-American consumers are some of the biggest beauty spenders. Yet for a long time, many of the skin, hair, and makeup products available in stores failed to cater to the specific beauty needs of the Latinx community. A marketplace rooted in Eurocentrism meant makeup often came with limited shade offerings, hair-care treatments did little to nourish natural curls and coils, and storied ingredients were regretfully marketed as new fads. With a rich tapestry of self-care rituals passed down from generation to generation, holistic Latinx traditions and experiences didn’t always align with these one-size-fits-all formulas on the shelves.
It’s through this lens that many modern-day Latinx beauty brands are born, with today’s entrepreneurs embracing an old-meets-new approach and a celebration of culture: They’re harnessing nutrient-rich ingredients from their unique regions and bottling them into clean, effective, and inclusive products that speak directly to the community’s vast heritage and its beauty needs.
From luxury skin care to curl-enhancing formulas, the options are (finally) plentiful. Get to know a few of the Latinx beauty brands putting the community front and center—and shop them below.
Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty has unsurprisingly taken off since its 2020 launch. Aside from cult-favorite products that quickly go viral on TikTok (nearly two billion views for the blush alone), the brand’s Rare Impact initiative ties in with Gomez’s passion for mental health resources.
Another Latinx celebrity makeup line is Becky G’s Treslúce. Her Mexican heritage stands out in nearly every SKU, with names like La Flor de México and Bold y Atrevida. Fans can shop for vibrant shadow palettes, glittery pigments, eyeliner, and much more in the brand’s signature blue packaging.
Valdé was founded by Latina beauty veteran, Margarita Arriagada. Before starting her beauty line, Arriagada served as the Chief Merchant for Sephora for nearly a decade. She took her expertise and turned it into a curated collection of color cosmetics inspired by her Peruvian American upbringing. She has also incorporated an NFT initiative into her business, where Latinx artists can earn a grant on behalf of the brand.
Gabriela Hernandez is not only the founder of Bésame, but she’s also a makeup historian and author. Her background explains Bésame’s vintage aesthetic inspired by the 1920s-1960s. The cake mascara, for example, doesn’t come in a tube but in a tin instead. The waxy formula is applied with a separate small bristle brush that was used during the early days of cinema.
Attorney Regina Merson took her love for lipstick and her Mexican culture and turned it into a full beauty business. As stated on the brand’s website, she was deeply inspired by her mother’s glamourized aesthetic and beauty looks she took note of at parties in Mexico. Today, Reina Rebelde has the essentials including lipsticks (of course), eyeshadow, eyeliner, and more.
It was only a matter of time before mega beauty influencer, Desi Perkins, debuted her skincare line. While she’s known for makeup looks and her ability to 3D special effects, she’s also grown a cult following for her glowing skin and thorough routine. Dezi Skin currently has a moisturizer, serum, face mist, and mask as part of the line with more expected to come.
Another influencer-founded brand is Dominique Cosmetics. Christen Dominique’s 4.3 million YouTube subscribers began following her for easy-to-follow everyday makeup looks and she was eventually able to start her very own line. The brand now has everything you need for a complete daily makeup routine with face, eye, and lip products.
Every product from Francisco Costa’s face and body care line is infused with touches of his Brazilian roots. The former Calvin Klein creative director designed Costa Brazil as a sustainable luxury brand and you can find it at Net-a-Porter, Nordstrom, and Revolve.
Unable to find luxury beauty products that felt safe to use, Colombia-born Tata Harper launched her namesake brand in 2007 to help women like herself find the natural skin-care and makeup products she wanted—without compromising on effectiveness. Now considered a pioneer in plant-based (or farm-to-face) skin care, Tata Harper has set the bar high for clean beauty standards: Her supercharged formulas are packed with hundreds of raw botanicals (some of which are grown on her Vermont farm) and remain entirely free of toxins, GMOs, or fillers.
Rooted in Latinx heritage but decidedly modern in its formulations and packaging, Ceremonia is fashion consultant and influencer Babba C. Rivera’s first foray into the world of beauty. The clean hair-care brand debuted earlier in October 2020 with Aceita de Moska, a luxurious scalp remedy that combines potent natural ingredients from across the Latin American region: Brazilian pataua oil to reduce flakiness, aloe vera to condition, and castor oil to boost shine. Ceremonia has grown steadily in the last year, with noteworthy additions including full-system hair-care bundles and the beloved Pequi curl activator.
Your ultimate sun-kissed beach glow starts here. Mega-influencer Camila Coelho is the powerhouse behind Elaluz (the name means “light” in Portuguese), a beauty line that taps natural Brazilian superfood ingredients like papaya, açai, cupuacu, and camu camu to hydrate and nourish skin. Whether you pick up her 24k Lip Therapy or her best-selling Beauty Oil, many formulas are Leaping Bunny– or EWG-certified—or both—to ensure they meet the highest standards of clean.
Rea Ann Silva has undeniably transformed the way many of us do our makeup with the Beautyblender, a must-have for pros and beauty enthusiasts alike. The squishy pink teardrop sponge makes blending foundation and concealer a breeze—and it’s so good that it has even inspired numerous dupes. Since the launch of her hero product, Silva has branched out to create makeup brushes, sponge cleansers, and even a more sustainable version of the O.G. Beautyblender featuring plant-based materials.
“A love letter to curls and coils” is how Afro-Dominican Lulu Cordero describes Bomba Curls, a clean hair-care brand that incorporates organic ingredients from the Dominican Republic into its miracle-working hair-growth treatments. The brand currently carries two products—Forbidden Oil and Forbidden Hair Mask—that use ingredients like pistachio, cinnamon, and coffee-seed oil to help restore curl elasticity and shine. Cordero decided to launch Bomba Curls after suffering from traction alopecia and turning to “the unique hair-care recipes used in her native Dominican Republic to formulate elixirs that promote hair growth and health.”
You can say former fashion consultant Giovanna Campagna had somewhat of an epiphany in 2019 when visiting family in her mother’s native Colombia. She wanted to embrace the power of little-known yet super-effective native ingredients and introduce them to the world—much the way she did when she introduced Latin American fashion labels like Johanna Ortiz and Hunting Season to the American fashion scene. And so Joaquina Botánica was born. The brand, which takes its name from Campagna’s great-great-grandmother’s apothecary in Cali, currently has a lineup of two products: The first is a floral essence that mixes calendula, hyaluronic acid, and the Amazonian superfruit sacha inchi to replenish parched skin. The second is a hydrating face oil packed with brightening antioxidants from Colombia’s national flower, the orchid.
Is there anything Carolyn Aronson can’t do? She’s a hair stylist, cosmetologist, Miss Universe judge, philanthropist, and the fearless founder of It’s a 10, a hair-care empire that netted over $400 million in 2020. (Her cult-favorite Miracle Leave-In Spray apparently sold over 14 million bottles last year.) Celebrating one’s natural beauty is at the core of her company, and Aronson recently launched Be a 10, an inclusive makeup brand that furthers this mission.
Founder Carlos Huber is a Mexico-City born architect, historic preservationist, and fragrance developer, who creates fragrances that evoke the aromatic experience of another place and time. Carlos has also designed scents for Vacation Inc, Trudon, and all St. Regis Hotels & Spas globally.
Mexican-American Julissa Prado created Rizos Curls to celebrate her family and heritage. In the beginning, Prado ran her business out of her cousin’s garage while orders were fulfilled by other cousins. Pardo’s mission is to help curly girls learn how to embrace their natural hair textures.
Co-founded by Mexican-American makeup artist Lora Arellano, Melt Cosmetics was created to fill a major gap in the beauty industry: high-pigment and ultra-matte lipstick. After launching five new shades in 2013, Melt Cosmetics sold out in one minute and the rest is history. Today, Melt is one of the biggest and most beloved independent beauty brands, selling everything from lip liner to eyeshadow to highlighter, and of course, their signature lipstick, at major retailers like Sephora and Nordstrom.
Colombian-American Cyndi Ramirez credits her mother, who worked in spas in Queens and Manhattan, as her inspiration for founding Chillhouse in 2017. At the time, Chillhouse was an in-person spa with one location on the Lower East Side of Manhattan intended to modernize the spa industry, but it’s since evolved into a full-fledged beauty brand. Chillhouse also offers press-on nails, body care, beauty tools, and candles, so consumers can replicate Chillhouse’s spa and self-care experiences from the comfort of their own homes.
Venezuelan native Sonsoles Gonzalez spent 25 years working with major hair care brands from companies like Procter & Gamble and L’Oréal when she realized what the category was missing: Hair products that catered to and celebrated aging. Today, Better Not Younger treats a wide range of hair care concerns associated with aging, such as hair loss, density, and volume.
After years of struggling with acne and dark spots but feeling left out of the skin care conversation, Desiree Verdejo, who is Puerto Rican and African American, launched Hyper Skin: a clean, cruelty-free, vegan, and clinical skin care line with formulas catered towards Black and brown skin. In 2019, Hyper Skin launched its first product, the Hyper Even Brightening Dark Spot Vitamin C Serum, which sold out of it across multiple retailers (the full size is sold out at Sephora right now), and has since added a brightening cleanser and the award-winning Hyper Even Fade and Glow AHA Mask to their all-star lineup.
Raised by family of hairdressers in Ecuador, Fabian Lliguin rose to prominence as a renowned hairstylist and colorist in New York City, where he met his wife and Rahua co-founder Anna Ayers. Together, the couple launched Rahua Hair & Body Care, an all-natural line of hair and body care products inspired by indigenous women of the Amazon rainforest whose “long lustrous hair…cascaded past their waists.” The secret, according to Lliguin, was Rahua oil—members of the tribe used this oil for their hair and skin for centuries—which Rahua then brought back to his salon. After successfully transforming a client’s dry and damaged hair in just ten minutes, Lliguin set out to create a clean, non-toxic, and sustainable hair care line featuring the oil while remaining dedicated to environmental preservation. Staying true to his word, Rahua provides the indigenous communities of the Amazon legal tools and education they need to preserve and protect the Amazon forest. A portion of proceeds from Rahua go to preserving the Galapagos Islands.
Dominican-American sisters Mabel and Shaira Frías founded Luna Magic in Los Angeles, creating a line of high-performance cosmetics. Prior to launching Luna Magic, Mabel launched e-commerce strategies for beauty and lifestyle brands like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Savage x Fenty, while Shaira is a retail beauty expert, omni-channel strategist, and former journalist for NY1, Fox News, and Mundo Hispánico. In 2021, the Frías sisters appeared on Shark Tank, successfully making a deal, and today you can find Luna Magic’s vibrant products at Target, CVS, and Walmart.
While technically based out of Australia, where Ere Perez emigrated as an adult, much of Perez’s eponymous brand is inspired by her childhood in Mexico. According to Perez, Ere Perez Natural Cosmetics is influenced by Australia’s bountiful nature and eco lifestyle, blended with Mexico’s rich colors, vibrant culture, and naturopathic home remedies she learned from her mother and grandfather. Perez’s bestselling all-natural makeup brand is the modern evolution of her family’s traditions.
Born and raised in Jalisco, Mexico, Araceli “Cely” Ledesma relocated to Los Angeles to pursue hairstyling and makeup artistry. After working in the industry for over 10 years, Ledesma couldn’t help but notice how many of her clients were confused about makeup. As a makeup-obsessed Latina, she didn’t see herself or culture fully represented in beauty. After two years of development, Ledesma launched as an online-only, direct-to-consumer brand in 2018. Today, the brand remains focused on creating budget-friendly, cruelty-free, high-quality beauty products produced exclusively in Los Angeles and Mexico.
Chilean-born Ann Dunning and Mexican-American Christina Kelmon left their long careers in Silicon Valley to found Vamigas. The brand was inspired by Dunning’s IVF experience, when she realized that Latinas face disproportionate exposure to harmful chemicals in beauty products. The missing piece to the puzzle, she felt, was going back to plant-based basics and simpler beauty rituals like her Latin American ancestors. The end result was clean beauty products formulated with 100% naturally derived Latin American botanicals.
