Launch Date: October 2020
Geography: Morelos, Mexico
Founder:
Executive Team: Oscar Garcia Bada, CFO
Advisor: Susana Navarrete, SN MARKETING
2025 Full Year Projected Revenue: Under $2M, according to industry estimates
Primary Category: Haircare
Other Categories:
Funding: Self-Funded
Primary Distribution Channel: Prestige
Other Distribution Channels: DTC
Key Retail Partners:
2025 Projected Offline Distribution Points: 460
LATINA was born from a powerful insight: curly hair, especially within the Latino community, has long been underrepresented in mainstream beauty.
In 2018, Pilar García, a proud Mexican entrepreneur and natural hair advocate, created Rizos Latinos, a digital community that grew to over 700,000 women embracing their textured hair and cultural identity. That movement inspired LATINA: a clean haircare brand made in Mexico, specifically formulated for curly and textured hair.
Launched in 2020, LATINA is rooted in purpose, pride, and performance. Every product reflects the values of Latin heritage, clean beauty, and the journey to self-acceptance. Our formulas are enriched with ingredients like aloe vera, avocado, and cacao, deeply tied to our culture and effective for texture haircare.
In 2022, LATINA became the first and only Mexican hair brand to launch at Sephora Mexico nationwide. In 2025, it became the first Mexican curly hair brand at Ulta Beauty, now present in over 460 doors.
LATINA is more than a brand; it’s a movement. With every bottle, we celebrate identity, visibility, and pride for a new generation of Latinas who deserve to see themselves represented on every shelf.
Insights: Pilar García, Co-Founder + CEO and Victor Garcia, Co-Founder + VP Strategic Alliances
Why now and why you?
Because the beauty industry is finally opening its eyes to real diversity, and it’s time for Latinas with textured hair to be fully seen, represented, and celebrated. LATINA is the first Mexican-made curly haircare brand created by and for Latinas. We have a deep understanding of the cultural, emotional, and practical realities that come with textured hair in our communities.
Our timing is intentional: textured haircare is growing; clean beauty is expected, not optional, and consumers are demanding authenticity and cultural relevance. We are stepping into this moment with a bold brand, high-performance products, and a loyal community that has been with us since day one. We launched in Ulta Beauty in April 2025 with a mission to lead (not follow), within the textured category. As indie voices reshape beauty, LATINA offers not only innovation, but impact. We’re not just here to fill a shelf. We’re here to shift the narrative.
What fuels your competitive advantage?
This could be product, process, philosophy, etc. Our competitive edge is cultural authenticity paired with product excellence.
LATINA is the only clean haircare brand made in Mexico specifically for curly and textured hair, developed by Latinas, for Latinas. Every formula is crafted with intentionality, infused with ingredients rooted in Mexican heritage (like aloe vera, flaxseed, and agave) and designed to meet the real needs of textured hair. We don’t just speak to a demographic; we are part of the community. This allows us to build deeper loyalty, emotional resonance, and credibility that many legacy brands can’t replicate. Beyond product, our agile structure allows us to move fast, stay close to our consumers, and create market-relevant activations that reflect the rhythm of Latin culture in the US and Mexico. In a category often dominated by US-centric narratives, LATINA brings a fresh voice that celebrates heritage, identity, and hair in equal measure.
What are you most proud of accomplishing to date?
We are incredibly proud of having built a brand that fills a gap not only in the market, but in the hearts of a historically overlooked community. LATINA is the first and only Mexican hair brand at Sephora Mexico and the only Mexican-founded brand currently sold at Ulta Beauty across the US. This milestone validates not just the quality of our products, but the strength of a movement born from within the community. What we value most is having transformed an intimate, cultural conversation into a profitable and purpose-driven business with real social impact. LATINA generates employment, uplifts ingredients deeply rooted in Mexican heritage and supports women entrepreneurs across our value chain. It’s a shared accomplishment we carry with pride as siblings, as business partners, and as members of the community we serve.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you?
We wish someone had told us how lonely and challenging it can be to build something meaningful in an industry dominated by giants. That it’s not only about having a great idea or product but about learning how to open doors that often feel intentionally closed. We also wish we had known how often self-doubt would creep in and how crucial it would be to hold on to our “why” during the toughest moments. The journey is built step by step, and there are times when giving up feels easier than pushing through. But every time we reconnect with our community, our mission becomes clear again. Perhaps the most powerful lesson has been this: Every decision led by intuition and authenticity is a competitive advantage. Being different isn’t a weakness, it’s what makes you unforgettable.
What would you tell your past self before starting this journey?
“This journey won’t be easy, but it will change everything.” You’ll have to become a student of everything: from logistics and inventory to formulation and distribution, often learning as you go. You’ll carry not just a brand, but the weight of representing a movement, of being a visible voice for a community that has long felt unseen. Stay ready to grow without losing touch. To scale, without sacrificing soul. To become more professional, without ever forgetting your roots.
And most of all: Never lose sight of the why. Every milestone, every shelf placement, every revenue goal will be more than a business win. It will be the result of touching real lives with a message that truly matters.
What does success look like in the next 3-5 years?
For LATINA, success over the next 3-5 years means deepening our impact, financially, culturally, and socially, while staying rooted in the community that inspired us.
We aim to grow annual revenue to $120 million, expand into leading Latin American retail chains, and scale our DTC presence in the US, all while strengthening our strategic alliance with Ulta Beauty. But success isn’t just sales; it’s about meaning and representation.
We envision LATINA as the go-to brand for Latinas, Afro-Latinas, bicultural, and multicultural women who see their “inner LATINA” reflected in our products and message. We also aspire to lead the Latin American beauty category with solutions and storytelling created from within by and for the community. Culturally, our goal is to redefine beauty standards and claim shelf space for textured hair in regions historically overlooked.
Socially, we will continue to generate jobs, empower hair professionals with education on textured hair, and collaborate with organizations aligned with cultural pride and women’s empowerment. As Forbes once said, LATINA is a brand born from the community to transform it from within. Our success will be measured in scale, impact, and heart.
What's one industry trend that is overhyped, and what's being overlooked?
Overhyped: Flashy, shallow marketing campaigns that chase virality without purpose. In a saturated digital world, there’s an obsession with being “Instagrammable” and projecting perfection, often at the expense of authenticity. Many brands speak to communities they don’t truly understand, using borrowed voices and forced diversity.
Overlooked: The transformative power of cultural connection and genuine storytelling. What’s often ignored is that real impact comes from building community with purpose, from listening, educating, and showing up authentically over time. The brands that invest in relationships, not just reach, build the deepest and most lasting loyalty.
LATINA is living proof. We didn’t launch with millions in advertising or manufactured narratives. We built organically, from within the community, with truth, pride, and a mission to celebrate textured hair and Latin identity. We don’t aim to be a fleeting trend. We aim to be a platform for representation, empowerment, and lasting change. In today’s beauty industry, authenticity isn’t just a differentiator, it’s the most undervalued and powerful advantage.
How do you think the industry needs to evolve?
The beauty industry must evolve beyond performative inclusion and embrace structural, long-term change. Inclusion shouldn’t be a seasonal campaign; it must become a core business strategy. That means redistributing creative, economic, and decision-making power toward brands founded by individuals from underrepresented communities.
It’s also time to modernize collaboration between emerging brands and retailers: reducing entry barriers, sharing investment risk, and building real value partnerships. Rather than viewing indie brands as competition, industry giants must see them as allies, amplifying new voices and unlocking conversations that truly reflect today’s consumer.
Consumers no longer want perfection; they want purpose. They crave real stories, cultural relevance, and products that speak their language. LATINA exists because we understood this early on.
Finally, the future of beauty doesn’t lie solely in formula innovation; it lies in cultural innovation. The brands that lead with authenticity, empathy, and community will be the ones to drive lasting impact. We need less vertical thinking and more collaborative ecosystems that reflect the world we live in.
If you could wave a magic wand, what one wish would you make for your business?
If we could wave a magic wand, our wish would be for every Latina, especially those who once felt their hair wasn’t “professional,” “beautiful,” or “accepted,” to see a bottle of LATINA and feel instantly recognized: “This was made for me, by someone like me.”
We dream of LATINA becoming a global platform for representation, pride, and self-love. A brand that not only offers clean, effective products for curly and textured hair but also inspires women everywhere to build from their roots with confidence and vision.
We envision a future where LATINA has consolidated a global distribution network and retail presence, reaching millions of Latinas around the world. But more importantly, we wish to always preserve the emotional connection with the women who gave LATINA its purpose from day one. Because when a woman makes peace with her hair, she begins to make peace with her story. And in helping her do that, we believe LATINA can spark a ripple effect of pride, healing, and empowerment across generations.
