Latinas have really been making a name for themselves in the beauty world. In fact, there’s been an upstick in beauty brands owned by Latinxs. According to the 2016 States of Women-Owned Business Report, for every 10 women-owned businesses launched since 2007, eight were started by women of color. Latinas own close to 788,000 businesses in the U.S. This has inspired me to go out of my way to seek out, support, and purchase Latinx-owned beauty products to help put those dollars in our communities pockets. I already started with my curly hair products — I’m obsessed with Rizos Curls and Botanika Beauty. Now I’m slowly looking into making the switch with my skincare products too.
I knew there were Latina-owned skincare brands out there — a lot of these being organic — but I had no idea how many. It excites me to see how many have been coming out over the years. The options are happening! Here’s a look at 10 Latina-owned skincare brands worth checking out and supporting right now!
Brujita Skincare
Leah Guerrero, a.k.a. Brujita, was inspired to come out with her own organic AND affordable skincare brand to help heal the community.
“We don’t tend to look at skincare as an overall health issue but in reality, any product made with synthetic materials has the potential to impact people’s health. Many fail to realize that when clean products carry a high price point, those who cannot afford them are left using creams, serums, and mask that are filled with harmful ingredients,” Guerrero told HipLatina. “And even higher-end products are not always healthy for the skin. The reason why commercial products are at a high price is because they’re filled with synthetics and they’re filled with paragons and a lot of other chemicals that are pretty expensive. That’s why they just mark up the prices.”
Her interest in making organic skincare more accessible to WOC stems from the hard fact that commercial beauty products for black women and women of color contain more dangerous chemicals than those made for white women. For her it’s not just a beauty issue, it’s a social justice issue. Brujita Skincare features everything from facial serums, face creams, scrubs, balms, clay masks, and more.
BreadxButta Botanica
This Brooklyn-based lifestyle brand is known for their CBD wellness products including CBD bath soaks, CBD moon oil, and a CBD tattoo balm that was created from Puerto Rican recipes with Taino roots. This line has self-care and wellness written all over it.
Happy Organics
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0XKYq0hg5-/
This is another lifestyle and wellness brand with a deep focus on CBD healing. The founder Jessica Gonzalez (who is Mexicana and based out of Los Angeles) actually started her career in software development before creating her CBD and honey business.
“I worked in San Francisco for 2 years after I graduated from college. I then started a technology company in Agriculture in Salinas, California and moved down there for that. My mom was really sick so I decided to move back home to be closer to her. She passed away about two months after I moved back home and about 4 months after that I left the company I started. I was 25 at the time and felt really overwhelmed with everything so I stopped working or looking for jobs. I let myself explore other everything I wanted to in hopes of inspiring myself; I was selling fruit, helping my dad with his bees, and working on small coding projects. Later that year in 2017 my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and it felt like my whole world was turned upside down. I felt like I didn’t get a chance to breathe. My dad was taking cannabis for pain relief and I decided to mix it with his honey to give it a better taste. I then started selling it to friends and family to have some income because I wasn’t working at the time. That’s how it started. I didn’t really intend to be in the cannabis industry or to even be starting a business at the time,” Gonzalez tells HipLatina.
The company has evolved offering everything from sustainable raw honey to a CBD infused salve. But Gonzalez makes it real clear that her products are about healing — not conforming to society’s beauty standards.
“When I started making the Honey + Flowers Healing Balm it was about making a product that helped heal my skin after working a long day in the sun. I didn’t want to say it was anti-aging or pore minimizing or any other term that seems to target these false ideas that women have to age a certain way or have perfect skin. My products are not about beauty, they’re about feeling whole again,” she adds.
Eva’s Garden
This non-toxic skincare line for face and body was born in the Dominican Republic and started with founder Eviel Tavares, who was inspired herself to try natural ingredients to fade her post-acne scars. All of the ingredients used are plant-based and ethnically sourced.
Mud
These natural and handmade beauty goods are made in small batches in Providence, Rhode Island and are available at Etsy. The mission behind them is to heal, purify, nourish, and relax. I’m actually dying to try the Oats + Honey mudMask.
Menos Mas
Bronx-born and Paris-bound Dominicana Annya Santana is the founder and brains behind organic and gender-fluid skincare brand Menos Mas. After struggling with acne for years, Santana managed to heal her skin using natural recipes which she later bottled and eventually lead to her having her own skincare line.
“The inspiration for Menos Mas the skincare brand started with a balm I created. It was a combination of all these natural ingredients, most of which I had in my kitchen, that pushed me to experiment. That very balm is part of our collection now. It cleared my skin and friends and family kept seeing incredible results from using it,” she says. ‘The incredibly positive feedback and push of friends and family lead me to really take it as a serious venture. I wanted to also create a space that really made people understand that beauty starts from the inside out. That it’s not just clean products but a clean lifestyle. After years of being in White-oriented fitness spaces and still not seeing any Latin representation, I knew Menos Mas was that space. Menos Mas at its core is simply bridging the gap between wellness and culture, our roots, our way, and within that uplifting our community to take care of themselves.”
Yaocihuatl Organic Skincare
This skincare brand offers all types doodies from Horchata, Dulce de Leche, and Guava lip balms to Calendula Face Cream, Coffee Eye Serum, and Cayenne Salve. It’s Latinx organic skincare at its finest.
Loquita Bath & Body
There’s nothing basic about this bath and body line, famously known for their Concha Bath Bomb. The Mexican-Guatemalan-owned brand does an exceptional at featuring products that really elevate Latinx culture including a hand and body scrub called Manos Sucias, churro-flavored lip balms, a hair spritz called Pelo Suelto, and a Bruja Bew Bath Bomb, We can’t get enough of all of it!
Bubbly Moon Naturals
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1JpCGvHa0J/
This vegan and cruelty-free skincare and body line target extremely sensitive skin. They think organic clay deodorant, essential oils, nursing salve — you name it!
Tata Haper
Not everyone knows that the founder behind luxury skincare brand, Tata Harper is actually Colombiana. When Tata couldn’t find luxury skincare brands that met her sustainable needs, she decided to create her own line formulated without the harsh chemicals a lot of cosmetics are loaded with. “I couldn’t find anything that was effective, made of high-quality ingredients, and pleasant to use. I knew if I was looking for results without worrying about my safety, other women must be too, so I decided to create my own,” she told Allure.
