This is the first of our Global Beauty Hotspots series, unpacking the regional beauty market around the world, including Latin America, Australia, East Asia and Africa. This article is part of our Vogue Business membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for membership here.
From Sol de Janeiro’s viral Bum Bum Cream to the Nopalera Cactus Flower Exfoliant, a new generation of Latin American beauty brands is garnering attention beyond the region.
The Latin American diaspora is lending its support. Trends such as #brazilianskincare are surging on social media, with nearly 3 million views on TikTok, while native ingredients such as cactus and acai berry are winning wider appreciation.
Middle Eastern consumers are pushing back against European beauty ideals and embracing their unique features, a new report finds. International brands need to rethink their approach to tap into this lucrative market.
.jpg)
Latin America has long been known for its haircare treatments and products — the Brazilian blow dry, a keratin hair treatment, dominated social media discussions in the UK and US in late 2017. That reputation is now extending beyond haircare. The hashtag #braziliancrush, referencing a best-selling perfume mist by Sol de Janeiro, has over 190 million views on TikTok.
Brazilian beauty influencer Jardel Edebran Farias, a TikToker with 250,000 followers, says the skincare market in Brazil is becoming more sophisticated. He started out making videos in Portuguese but now also creates content in English in a bid to “present great Brazilian brands to the world”, as he puts it. “Brands here are making skincare in their own way,” he says. “They’re not just taking the narrative of Brazilian culture or of Carnival and selling skincare. These brands are really understanding what Brazilian people want and what the American and international audience wants.” Among the brands on his radar are Simple Organic, Care Natural, Rio Biocosmetics, Ge Beauty and Hela Beauty.
TikTok content
Latin American brands are attracting interest both from the diaspora community and from non-Latino consumers in international markets. Beauty consumers enjoy exploring other geographies for skincare tips and products, experts say. “A lot of [these trends are] about what is authentic to a specific country — what are they really good at?” says Sara Hudson, partner and analyst at consultancy McKinsey Co. “People are very much interested in places where they see the authenticity of the trends and products that align with those trends.” It’s a shift in attitude that has prompted global brands to make targeted acquisitions, such as India’s ayurvedic brands or Korean skincare brands.
Understanding the Latin American market
The Latin American beauty and personal market was worth $61.4 billion in 2022. Brazil, at $26.9 billion, is the fourth-largest beauty market in the world, behind the US, China and Japan, according to Euromonitor International. In Latin America, Mexico and Chile are the second and third-largest markets behind Brazil.
However, Latin America’s growth is yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, says McKinsey’s Hudson. From 2022 to 2025 the market is expected to grow by 3.5 per cent, according to market research firm Inkwood Research. Besides Brazil, Mexico and Chile, Inkwood analysts note that Colombia and Argentina are “enjoying growing beauty sales, boosted by an expanding middle class and a cultural fascination with looking good”.
Skinification — the adoption of skincare ingredients, trends and principles across beauty categories — is a worldwide beauty sector phenomenon that has also caught on across Latin America. Kayla Villena, beauty and personal care industry manager at Euromonitor International, notes: “This is manifesting in Latin America through skincare ingredients appearing in colour cosmetics.”
The global giants still dominate beauty sales in Latin America. The Estée Lauder Companies is the number one prestige beauty company in the region in terms of sales, according to the company. American-British beauty giant Avon manufactures fragrances and personal care products in Brazil, while Unilever also manufactures in Indaiatuba, Brazil.
Emerging Latin American brands are finding a niche by leaning into their heritage and culture to create an authentic regional beauty perspective that speaks to both local and international audiences. However, cross-border sales within the region can be challenging, with heavy import and export fees and limited manufacturing and warehouse facilities.
“The operational back end needed to sell internationally to [Latin American] countries is really complicated,” says Sandra Velasquez, California-based founder of Nopalera, a Mexican beauty brand. “Even though we’ve had interest, we’re not able to sell there.” Her focus is on Latino consumers in the US (Hispanics or Latinos currently make up 19 per cent of the US population). Nopalera’s goal is to strengthen its customer base in the US, then expand to Europe.
.png)
Tackling the international market
Gen Z favourite Sol de Janeiro has led the way for Latin American brands seeking to prove their worth in global markets. Since launching in 2015, the Brazilian brand, known for its tropical-scented body creams and perfume mists, has struck a chord with Gen Z consumers, becoming one of the fastest growing premium skincare brands in North America. In 2021, French beauty conglomerate Groupe L’Occitane bought a majority stake in Sol de Janeiro, which has reported strong growth since. Perfume mist sales are up by 365 per cent from 2021, according to the brand.
Velasquez launched Nopalera in California back in October 2020 to fill a gap in the market for a high-end, luxury Latino beauty brand. “I created Nopalera to really fight the mentality that luxury somehow only belongs to Western Europe, and that Latinos don’t want (or won’t pay for) luxury,” she says. “There’s a massive opportunity, and movement here in the US for culture [led] brands.” Nopalera’s sales topped $630,000 in 2022 and are expected to surpass $1 million this year, according to the brand The brand raised $2.7 million in funding in October.
Also keen to fill the gap is Giovanna Campagna, who founded Colombian skincare brand Joaquina Botánica in 2021. She previously ran an agency to support Latin American luxury fashion brands in international markets — including Johanna Ortiz and accessories brand Hunting Season. “We were very convinced that Latin America had just as much to offer in terms of luxury fashion as the rest of the world but there just wasn’t an entry point or a clear path to access those buyers and customers,” she says. “It was through that same work that I realised there is the same lack in beauty and skincare… There was virtually no brand speaking to everything that Latin America has to offer.”
For many local brands, the cost of international development is frustratingly high. The evolution of Eva’s Garden, a Dominican skincare brand launched in 2016, has been slower than anticipated for founder Eviel Taveras. “We are struggling to get our products out of the island. It’s really expensive to export from here and especially if someone places an order for one item,” she says.
“We’re now starting to work with a warehouse so that we can ship a good amount of product to the facility and [from there] ship directly within the US market.” Taveras plans to secure retail partners in the US as demand increases.
The appeal of local ingredients
The use of native ingredients delivers an authentic touch for Latino consumers. Campagna of Joaquina Botánica is keen to explore the potential of ancient remedies and ingredients used by indigenous communities in the Amazon and parts of Colombia. The first Joaquina Botánica product was a hydrating face oil that combined vitamin C with orchid, the national flower of Colombia.
Nopalera develops its products around the hero ingredient of the nopal (known as the prickly pear cactus in English), which grows in abundance in Mexico and is culturally symbolic to Mexicans, according to founder Velasquez. “The inspiration was this plant. I said I’m going to take this plant that is known to every single Mexican person and I’m going to build a high-end Latino beauty brand around it; and I’m going to make it so beautiful that, of course, all of the Latinos are going to look at it and recognise it as theirs — and everyone who doesn’t know what it is are going to want to know.”
Eviel Taveras of Eva’s Garden, says, “For me, using natural ingredients was always the way to go. I’ve always been inspired by the culture we have here, and I decided I wanted to do things differently, looking here for inspiration.” Taveras works with a local lab based in the Dominican Republic to create an exfoliating face scrub made from amber powder, a stone found in the country, as well as an AHA exfoliating solution made out of sugar cane extract, which is a natural source of glycolic acid.
Within the Dominican Republic, labs and chemists are used to working with local ingredients, but the majority specialise in formulating for haircare products, forcing Taveras to work with labs in the US to finalise some of her products. “Sometimes the experience that [overseas] labs have is very important — and sometimes we have to put that before wanting to make a product [entirely] in the Dominican Republic.”
Influencer Edebran Farias points out that the old reputation of Brazilian skincare products as being of indifferent quality has been pushed aside. He says there is intense global interest in developments in the region. “The international market is looking at Brazil because of the innovation and to see how they are using [ingredients native to the region]. We used to buy a lot of skincare from other countries but now the skincare market here is strong — and Brazilian brands are proud.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
