Key Takeaways:

• Latina consumers drive 20% of US beauty spending, yet lack power in leadership and capital.
• In beauty, representation is often visible; equity requires redistributing power across funding, retail, and leadership.
• For Latina founders, the biggest barriers appear before shelf space: capital, infrastructure, and access to networks. 

The Latina population in the United States exceeds 60 million, representing about 18.9% of the total US population, and this is projected to double by 2050. These numbers prove that the Latina population in the US is not a niche; it is a force to be reckoned with. The question is whether the beauty industry has acted accordingly.

Hispanic households, the classification used in federal data and consumer research, represent 17% of beauty consumers but account for more than 20% of category spending. This indicates that Latina consumers account for a disproportionate share of beauty spending in the US.

Julissa Prado, the Mexican American founder of Rizos Curls, launched the textured haircare brand from her uncle’s garage with her entire life savings. Today, as Prado shared with BeautyMatter, the brand generates tens of millions of dollars in revenue. The market was never the question. Latina beauty consumers wield power, but has that translated into leadership, ownership, or operational control within the industry?

Latinas make up only 5% of entry-level workers in corporate jobs and 1% of C-suite executives in the US. This is a pattern that holds across most industries, including beauty. 

“Beauty existed all around me, but it wasn’t built with me in mind,” Cris Gordon, first-generation Dominican and Head of MMC Beauty at Marina Maher Communications (MMC), said to BeautyMatter. That gap, between industry presence and industry investment, is where the conversation on representation has stalled, and where the industry’s focus must now sharpen. 

The Limits of Visibility

Success stories like Prado’s are important and hard-won. They are also the kind of visible wins the industry cites while leaving the underlying architecture untouched. “The industry generally does not make the effort to understand this rather nuanced community and our needs fully,” Margarita Arriagada, first-generation Peruvian American, former Chief Merchant at Sephora, and founder of Valdé Beauty, told BeautyMatter. 

Going further, she said, “It oversimplifies every aspect of representation by being performative, that is, having one Latina model in campaigns, highlighting some employees that speak Spanish, inserting some Spanish language on websites, or shallow Hispanic Heritage Month campaigns. It simplifies it by depicting us as a very narrow stereotypical model that checks off the Latina box, often portrayed as the ‘saucy, tan, curvy, dark-haired gal.’ Yet to fully understand our community, immersion is needed to grasp the fact that we are the United Nations within our community.”

This affinity for performance may be subconscious, but it is also strategic. Focusing on visibility means putting fewer cards on the table than would be required with investment. Performance requires no redistribution of power, no budget reallocation, and no structural discomfort. 

“Ownership requires long-term investment, accountability, and shared power,” said Gordon.

Equity Beyond DEI

If equity is infrastructure, then someone has to build that infrastructure, and that person has to sit at the executive table. Not just in a DEI function working through consensus or in an advisory role without budget authority, but at the CEO or board level, with the power to override decisions, redirect assortments, and absorb the organizational friction that is an inevitable by-product of structural change.

“Generally speaking, the Latina leadership is not acknowledged as a 'need' in the schemes of what top executives think about in their business development strategies. To the extent that there are DEI initiatives in place, it is generally lumped in within their strategies but not specifically identified as a Latino ‘need,’” Arriagada shared. “There are few, if any, organizations that truly attempt to connect the dots in how you add value to the Latina consumer beyond performative optics and how large that opportunity can be.”

“Unlike initiative-led DEI, which can operate at the program level, back-end equity demands long-term structural reform across compensation, governance, ownership, and operations, making it more complex and more resource-driven,” said Philip Miller, co-founder of Product Society, a beauty product development firm. The brand recently earned the Latinas in Beauty Badge, which is awarded to organizations that sign the Latinas in Beauty manifesto and pledge to take actionable steps towards equity, moving beyond performative DEI statements toward tangible industry accountability.

The Retail Relationship as Power Broker

There is one spot in beauty where the gap between front-end and back-end equity practices can be fully observed, and it is the retail floor.

According to Arriagada, retail relationships are one of the most important back-end structures when it comes to representation; paradoxically, they often get the least scrutiny. “It is very much a ‘who you know, who has influence’ system, and that is one of the things that impacts us the most. There are tighter, close-knit groups and individuals that have direct access and advantage to retailers, leaving most of our community out unless they are a highly visible talent or a celebrity.”

When Prado secured distribution at Ulta, Nordstrom, and Target, she entered a system that was still learning how to receive her. “For true equity, access to the full ecosystem that drives retail success is important, but it is highly competitive in a retail environment,” she said. At Ulta Beauty, Nordstrom, and Target, Rizos Curls entered without precedent, exposing the limits of merchandising systems built on historical benchmarks.

“They often don’t know where to place you,” she said.

However, after breaking ground in these markets, it soon became obvious that there was a ready consumer base of textured-hair consumers waiting to receive the brand, so much so that demand almost outweighed supply. According to Prado, large retailers often lag in recognizing demand outside established categories. Their preference for internal data and incremental growth over outside evidence has kept them cautious— and for Rizos Curls, that caution has shown up as lots of out-of-stocks at Ulta Beauty and Target, inadvertently exposing the white space in that category.

While access is the first barrier, shelf permanence is the second. “Real accountability looks like consistency,” said Gordon. “Products are stocked year-round, replenished properly, supported with education, and measured like any core SKU. Accountability means permanence, not a marketing play. I always say, the consumer is too smart and has too much access to information and public conversations because of social media, so brands are being held accountable, and they need their changes to be honest, for themselves and for the consumer.”

Capital, Ownership, and the Scale Problem

Prado’s retail journey illustrates one dimension of the infrastructure gap. But for many Latina founders, they experience the barriers earlier, at the capital stage, before a retail conversation can even be had. According to Miller, the capital-to-scale pipeline is the single mechanism that would most materially change outcomes for Latinas in beauty. This system is what determines how founders move from early traction to sustainable, institutional growth. “Latina consumers are heavily over-indexed in consumption,” he said. “Yet Latina-founded brands remain under-supported in access to capital, operating infrastructure, and scaled advertising investment, despite representing the fastest-growing demographic in the US.” Through Latinas in Beauty, nearly 300 Latina-founded brands have been tracked, approximately 15% have closed in the past few years,” Miller said. “This stands in stark contrast to the estimated $4.1 trillion in Latina purchasing power.”

Prado’s response was to stay entirely self-funded. This decision turned out to be not only necessary but also strategic. It gave her the ability to choose growth partners based on alignments rather than urgency, keeping both the brand’s authenticity and her ownership intact. “I’ve been able to explore potential growth capital with partners who truly understand the vision,” she said. “It also allows the ability to make potential equity decisions based on who is the right partner, and not purely based on capital need.”

The industry is increasingly comfortable amplifying diverse voices, but far less willing to shift who controls profit centers, investment decisions, and long-term growth, according to Gordon. “That change requires trust, and a willingness to let go of control.”

Operationalizing Commitment

In the midst of these multiple gaps, the industry has not been stagnant. Across many parts of the pathway, intent is gradually being translated into structure. These efforts are still evolving, but they point to a shift from performative inclusion toward infrastructure building across retail, brand, and operational levels.

Retailers such as Ulta, Sephora, Target, JCPenney, and Beauty by H-E-B are moving beyond one-off inclusion to building early-stage pipelines for underrepresented founders.

Ulta Beauty created Ulta Beauty’s MUSE Accelerator, which includes a 10-week program designed to prepare brands for retail scale. Through this platform, Ulta Beauty provides funding, mentorship, and direct access to merchants and investors. Since its launch, this initiative has supported more than 30 founders, reflecting a broader recognition that access must be built before shelf placement. As the company noted in its program materials, the goal is to “create a lasting foundation and pathways for early-stage founders to thrive.”

Sephora’s founder accelerators and global expansion strategies suggest a similar shift. Sephora Accelerate has helped produce brands that have gone on to achieve mainstream visibility, and the retailer’s expansion into Latin American markets introduces a feedback loop that could inform how Latina consumers are understood and served in the US market.

Target has expanded supplier diversity and brand incubation efforts, pairing shelf access with funding and visibility.

JCPenney has embedded Latina representation across its workforce pipeline (from recruitment to leadership) through initiatives such as Hope & Wonder, integrating Hispanic perspectives into merchandising and brand storytelling. The brand has extended this into beauty by including and amplifying Latina-founded brands and creators within its assortment and campaigns, while also linking representation to economic equity through sustained community partnerships.

JCPenney supports non-profit Latinas in Beauty, working with the platform to foster inclusivity and equity within the beauty industry, according to Lisa Green, VP Beauty & Salon at JCPenney.“Because JCPenney celebrates and serves America’s diverse working families, we make sure that we show up and support the communities that we serve and lift them.”

Through visibility, exposure, and commercial opportunity, Beauty by H-E-B amplifies Latina-owned brands, creators, and executives, ensuring they are seen across retail and industry platforms.

“H-E-B made a significant impact as one of our first retailers in the USA,” Esmeralda Hernandez, Mexican American founder of Beauty Creations Cosmetics, said to BeautyMatter. “They stand out because of how intentional they are,” she said. “Not only do they bring Latina-founded brands in for representation, but they also take the time to understand the brand and community behind it. That shows up in thoughtful merchandising, marketing, and how they connect our products to their customers.”

According to Hernandez, H-E-B’s collaborative approach, accessibility, and partnerships enable genuine conversations, and its impact stems from sustained investment and long-term shelf presence rather than initial placement.

Meanwhile, subscription platforms like Ipsy are also rethinking how equity is built into distribution. By combining capital investment, guaranteed product volume, and amplified visibility, the company has invested more than $75 million in Black- and Latinx-led brands since 2021, effectively lowering the barriers to entry that traditional retail systems often reinforce.

Increasingly, the role of the retailer is shifting from gatekeeper to ecosystem participant, responsible not just for access, but for the conditions that sustain growth.

In parallel, Latina founders have continued to build outside conventional systems, developing alternative pathways to scale when capital and institutional support are limited. Founders have adopted cultural specificity and DTC models as a foundation for growth. Brands like Luna Magic,  Vive Cosmetics, and Beauty Creations Cosmetics built early traction through community engagement and digital channels before expanding into retail partnerships. The sequence of “community first, retail later” reverses the traditional mode and allows founders to prove demand before entering retail. The result is reduced risk and greater control over their brands and operations.

“What has propelled our growth the most has been our community,” Hernandez said. “We focused on building real relationships through social media, listening to our customers, and staying consistent in our mission, and that’s what’s allowed us to grow into the brand we are today.”

In addition, a growing layer of operators is emerging to address the infrastructure gap more directly. Product Society, for example, provides end-to-end support across branding, formulation, manufacturing, and logistics. These functions are often taken for granted by legacy brands but remain significant barriers for early-stage founders. In effect, these operators are externalizing the back-end systems required for scale, making them more accessible to those historically excluded from them.

The operator also demonstrates a working model of what internally operationalizing commitment looks like. They had initially taken the Latinas in Beauty Pledge, but recently earned the badge after recognizing that their operations already reflected a structural commitment worth formalizing: a Latina board member, a diverse executive team with genuine decision-making authority, and equity ownership extended to key contributors. “Earning the badge strengthened our existing commitment by formalizing accountability, expanding leadership development, and deepening investment in community infrastructure,” said Philip Miller.

Advocacy organizations like Fifteen Percent Pledge are pushing for structural accountability. The firm has worked with major retailers to reallocate shelf space towards underrepresented brands, linking representation directly to assortment rather than marketing optics.

Latinas in Beauty has taken on the role of both tracker and accountability mechanism within the industry, documenting the landscape of Latina-founded brands while formalizing commitments through its badge system.

On the capital side, investors like True Beauty Ventures are redirecting funding toward underrepresented founders, intervening earlier in the lifecycle where exclusion is most acute. Beyond providing financing, this firm embeds founders into networks that influence hiring, retail access, and long-term scalability.

At the intersection of retail and incubation, platforms like Thirteen Lune are building ecosystems where underrepresented brands are centered rather than added, combining distribution with storytelling and brand development. Meanwhile, consultancies such as The Social Impact Firm and creative operators like Willa Creative are translating equity from intention into execution, embedding inclusion into hiring, sourcing, and brand positioning.

Together, these efforts suggest that in the face of the existing constraints, new pathways are being built in parallel, some within existing systems, and others outside of them. The question is no longer whether equity can be operationalized but which models will prove durable enough to reshape the industry at scale.

What Comes Next

Every brand, retailer, investor, or operator has internal systems that either embed or exclude equity. But they must be willing to interrogate them to produce the needed industry shift in representation.

“Equity claims should be proven through audited systems, transparent metrics, and governance-linked initiatives, not marketing narratives. We will not close the gap if brands and corporations continue to profit from Latin culture while overlooking their communities,” said Miller.

For Arriagada, the metrics are straightforward: “Who is leading the charge? Are they empowered, or do they have to impact through other people and invest time trying to convince other constituents what needs to be done? What are the friction points? How much bureaucracy is there in the process? Do Latina brand founders have access to the merchants? If they do, are these decision-making merchants educated to understand our cultural nuances? Do biases exist? How are they overcome? Do the Latina employees feel heard? Are they actually probed and included in the process of identifying opportunities? Especially associates in the front lines with customers? Are customers included in shaping culture?”

Gordon identifies the most pervasive internal failure as hiring without releasing the authority that comes with the role. “Brands bring in diverse talent but fail to give them real influence, resources, or protection to drive change. When inclusion is treated as a box to check rather than an integral business goal, it becomes obvious, both internally and externally.” She advised brands to pause external messaging when it doesn’t match internal reality. “MMC’s human-first ethos means we are deeply committed to being honest with our clients when something isn’t ready to go public. Pausing to fix the foundation is always the most responsible choice.”

For Prado, as a Latina founder, accountability is also personal. Having navigated a system that offered her little to no pathways, she has made building them for others an integral part of her work, mentoring through Ulta Beauty’s MUSE Accelerator and organizing a Rizos Curls Small Business Summit that drew over 300 small businesses. “I truly believe in the ‘lift as you climb’ motto,” she said.

Ultimately, the beauty industry doesn’t need to perform representation. “It shows in the numbers,” said Arriagada. New customers, increased engagement, and revenue growth. When these practices are embedded into operations, surviving leadership changes, market cycles, and trends, the impact compounds.

“What I know from personal experience,” she added, “is that genuine small steps can lead to transformational change. Most organizations don’t realize what’s possible. Remember the Fenty moment? That’s what it looks like.”