Mexican Beauty Brands Seize The Moment

For Mexican beauty founders, a new era of prosperity beckons.

As global names like Charlotte Tilbury, Ulta Beauty and Unilever enter or increase their investments in the market, overall dynamism in Mexico is rising, abetted by rising wealth and an influx of migrants from wealthier countries. Homegrown beauty brands are also readying to ride a bigger wave of success, fuelled by international expansion, a buoyant diaspora and TikTok Shop.

“Mexico has been criticised as being a place where there’s nothing outside of drugs,” said Rémi Martini, co-founder of fashion and beauty line Sarelly Sarelly. “But there’s now an opportunity to show the world, and especially the US, that the future of fashion and beauty might be here.”

As customers increasingly opt to shop domestic brands across the globe, Mexican labels like Sarelly Sarelly, OD Beauty, Aora Mexico, Xinu and House of Bo and Botica Floral are particularly poised to seize the moment. The opportunity is enhanced by what some political commentators see as a desire from US President Trump to create a more solidified North American trading bloc, with the nation currently spared from the wider 10 percent tariff the rest of the world has faced since April. (Mexico, along with Canada, still faces tariffs of 25 percent on goods like steel and cars.)

“With the political changes that are happening, there’s this sense of, ‘I’m proud to be Mexican,’” said Karina Gonzalez Ulloa, beauty and lifestyle editor at Vogue Mexico.

In 2024, Mexico’s unemployment rate also dropped to a historic low of 2.4 percent, and while mass beauty and personal care brands saw slower growth, beauty grew overall as shoppers showed a growing preference for premium and specialised products, according to analytics firm Euromonitor.

Alongside growing interest in homegrown brands, Ulloa said she’s noticed more brands and products launching in Mexico in the last few years. She noted that with young shoppers, bold colours are especially popular, with November’s Día de los Muertos national holiday a key shopping moment for bright makeup.

Premium retailers like Sephora and El Palacio de Hierro are popular with shoppers — Sephora has steadily opened between seven and 10 new stores each year in Mexico since 2021, with new stores planned in Puerto Vallarta, Ciudad Juarez and Hermosillo.

Domestic brands are also finding success on TikTok Shop. According to Martini, the shopping app’s February rollout in Mexico allowed Sarelly Sarelly to turbocharge its growth, with a halo effect for other retailers. “After we launched on TikTok Shop, we saw a double-digit increase in our sales on Amazon,” he said, adding that no additional marketing was carried out. The brand has invested in live streams, promotions and content to succeed on TikTok, a move which Martini believes “is a big stamp of credibility before we go to a big retailer,” adding that the brand is set to launch in the US retailer Credo later this year.

Local brands have a home court advantage that can help them power ahead of global competitors. With innate knowledge of the country, its customs and cultural nuances, domestic brands are more easily able to create viral content and trending products. Gonzalez Ulloa gave an example from mass cosmetics label Aora Mexico, which has a range of lip products with a chilli-based ingredient that gives a plumping effect.

“It’s like this sense of wanting to be proud of our [local] ingredients,” she said.

Perfect Positioning

Right now, Mexico’s geographic and political position offers advantages. Namely its proximity to the US, the world’s biggest economy and beauty market, and home to 62 million Latinx consumers. If a US brand wants to expand, why not do so close to home?

While many beauty companies that sell in the US are currently scrambling to shore up their supply chains to minimise exposure to China, Mexican beauty brands are able to import into the US with fewer restrictions. And for a brand like Sarelly Sarelly, which produces and manufactures all of its products in Mexico, there’s even less chance of a snarl up. It’s a big opportunity, said Martini, and big players are taking notice: In May, Unilever announced a $1.5 billion investment in the nation including a new factory specialising in beauty products in Nuevo Leon.

This is coupled with rising wealth and diversity. While the Mexican economy is not projected to grow as fast as other emerging markets this year — expected GDP growth is around 2 percent versus India’s 6 percent — overall disposable income is rising, and more wealthy expats from other nations are choosing to make Mexico their home. According to research firm InPulse Digital, more than 30 million Mexicans are now between the ages of 11 and 26, with more than half of the total population in the Gen-Z or Millennial cohort: two prime beauty markets with a predilection for viral products, fun trends and maximal product selections.

Like many emerging markets, Mexico has a high proliferation of global brands in top retailers, which, while popular with shoppers, can make it harder for smaller domestic players to muscle in. TikTok Shop has upended this equation: brands that perhaps can’t get into the assortments of Sephora Mexico or local department stores can quickly set up storefronts on the app. Outlandish, a social media agency and accelerator set up what it described as a “content farm” in January to service local brands; it can make shoppable content on behalf of brands, and dub it in Spanish or other languages for other markets to remove barriers to entry for smaller brands.

Still, Gonzalez Ulloa said many Mexican brands like Aora Mexico and perfume maker Xinu have excelled with their brick-and-mortar stores, creating immersive spaces that transport customers. The flagship in Mexico City has floor-to-ceiling windows, wood panelling and lush foliage: “You feel like you’ve stepped into a magical garden… you’re not in Mexico City anymore,” Ulloa said.

Global Inroads

Mexican brands are also especially well-positioned to seize the growing Latino market in the US. On an earnings call in February, L’Oréal’s chief executive Nicolas Hieronimus told analysts that while the US was already its largest market, accounting for a quarter of group sales, he still sees growth opportunities with the Latin population.

“The number of potential consumers is expected to increase by 12 million…driven by the Latino population, which is younger and more focused on beauty, especially makeup and fragrances,” he said. According to research by insights firm Nielsen IQ, Spanish-speaking beauty customers in the US outspend non-Hispanic shippers by an average of $39 each year on products like hair care, fragrance and cosmetics.

Yet few mainstream beauty brands overtly target Latinx consumers, and even fewer are Latinx-founded. While Latinx shoppers aren’t only interested in brands with founders that share their demographics, smaller steps to engage the community, like advertising or marketing content in Spanish or more targeted social media campaigns, are few and far between.

For Sarelly Sarelly, the US has already been a boon, one powered by its TikTok Shop launch. Virality came quickly, he said, and customers are “craving” content in Spanish: A/B testing quickly showed that videos in Spanish performed much better in the US than those in English. In the US, best sellers include the $29 “Telenovela” lip duo and $18 “Long Cow Lash” mascara; in Mexico, a shimmery lip gloss and eyeshadow palette are popular.

Martini recognises a growing sense of national and diasporic pride in customers, as well as a desire for authentically Latinx-owned labels. “There was no brand in the US yet that has a true, authentic credibility as a heritage driven brand,” he said, saying proficiency in Spanish is key for brands and founders who claim to have Hispanic roots. Being proven in your home market, showing resonance with domestic consumers and being able to talk powerfully about manufacturing in your home country is also key.

“To be a defining Hispanic brand, you need to come from a Hispanic country,” he said. “But you also need to be successful and legit in your Hispanic country before you launch in the US.”

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