We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Margarita Arriagada. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Margarita below.

Alright, Margarita thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea for my business developed at a serendipituous moment when I was putting together a photo album of my mother’s life after her passing a few years prior. In reviewing the photos it was noticeable that she wore lipstick in all the photos. I flashed back to my mother’s life and her love of wearing lipstick. It was armor to her. It gave her strength and confidence. Yet the memory that underscored the reason to create the brand was the fact that my mother suffered from dementia and could not recognize me. But every time I took out a lipstick to apply to her, she would perk up with happiness, pucker up to ready for application and kiss a mirror because she saw a beautiful woman. I was profoundly impacted that despite the fact that she could not remember me, she never forgot how lipstick made her feel. My mother a Peruvian immigrant to the US, was a matriarch, heroic and iconic. A force who inspired many. most specially me. When I thought of which lipstick I might have gifted to her that would be more purposeful and worthy of that honor, I could not find any that came close.
Given my vast experience in beauty as former Chief Merchant at Sephora where I spent 11 years, I realized an opportunity to offer a luxury experience in the cosmetic space with beautiful, artistic, purposeful and sustainable objects that are also competitively functional with high quality formulas. In an industry that is currently highly saturated with throwaway beauty products, I wanted to pay tribute not just to my mother but also to the beauty industry that is worthy of having more elevated and purposeful products.

Margarita, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was born and raised in Lima, Perú, South America and came to the US when I was 12 with my mother and siblings. My career started when I was working in a department store in LA called Bullock’s on the selling floor while I was attending high school. I worked in various different deparments and given many assignments my Managers thought I handled well. It was them that recommended I join the executive training program after I graduated and while studying at the Fashion Insitute of Design and Merchandising. I had wanted to be an architect and was taking interior design courses. Bullock’s insisted I had talent and wanted me to join their program so I transferred my courses to Design and Merchandising.
I have a long career as buyer in Fashion, having launched many young and upcoming designers in the 70’s lile Diane Von Furstenberg and Kenzo. I transitioned into the Home Area where I spent many years also as Buyer and VP roles. By this time Macy’s had taken over Bullock’s and I was one of a small team retained to continue wtih them. My clame de fame throughout this period was my ability to create new categories of business, discover artists or artisans around the world to help them improve their craft to bring back to the US, or try new approaches to merchandising. Creating boutiques or cross merchandising which at the time seemed quite new and fresh. I would develop my love for brand development and brand experience during a time I worked for the Spanish firm Lladró. There I had many roles from Wholesale to Product Development, to procuring real estate locations for retail throughout the world, imagining and designing retail experiences, then execuring them while overseeing multiple functions. In a serendipitous turn of events, I would accept the role of head of Color Cosmetics of Sephora early in their entry to the US. A concept at the time I could not relate to as a Latina woman. I was given the opportunity to join their executive team and influence a change towards a more ethnic diverse representation which I championed both internally and externally to the industry leaders, every day of the 11 years I was there. My journey at Sephora would take me to the top Chief Merchant role, having contributed to the development of the Indie beauty business and industry it is today. I stepped down from that role right after my Mother passed away, my three children were graduating from college and social media was about to explode. I felt it was time to turn over the baton to my teams to take into the next chapter of Sephora’s evolution. My chapter had closed, I need time to grieve and evolve. A few years later, while remaining very active in the Beauty Industry mentoring, advising and with board memberships I begun the creation of Valdé. A project that while it started out as an homage to my Mother and the Beauty Industry has become a far more significant discovery and empowering journey for me. This brand has challenged me in so many ways that I often doubted my self and my worth. I am a much stronger person for having overcome so many fears. I have learned and grown more in the last 5 years than in the previous 15. While I do not have any regrets, I am incredibly grateful to had the courage to have taken the risk to invest in me, in doing something that is hard but so rewarding, purposeful and fulfilling. One of the aspects that is an extension of Valdé is the continuation of my original vision and purpose when I first joined Sephora, to see ethnic diversity in beauty assortments. For the last couple of years, Valdé has sponsored a Latinx Beauty Brand competition in which the winner received s a financial check from Valdé, along with mentoring, resources and guaranteed pitches to key retailers. Today I am leading advocacy in behalf of Latinx Beauty Brands to help open up opporturnities for the next generation of brands. What I am most proud of when I look back at my career is that I had the priviledge to impact people’s lives. Either through coaching/mentoring, discovering talent, developing brands, creating new opportunities, or launchign the first black brands at Sephora, whatever the work, at the end of the day, it’s about the people. You never know how your actions can impact, and I am humbled I have seen the large benefits of some of the seeds I planted which I am continuing to do to this day and as long as God will allow me.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My entire career is a story of resilience because opportunities did not come easy to me. I was a woman in a predominant male leader dominated industry in retail. And a Latina at that. A few times I was only promoted because there was no one else to promote. My mother never allowed me to lick my wounds or throw a pity party. She encouraged me to never give up on what I felt I was worthy of having. While I was very introverted, I was also very firm and did not easily give up. At times during my career I experienced sabotage. I persevered through two reasons: My family and my faith. Both unwavering. They were my rock and foundation. I felt I could not anything wiht their support and I did.
However my biggest challenge and testing has been through the creation of Valdé. While the concept seems simple, there is nothing about the brand that is. Every aspect of the brand is a challenge. Fron the design of the vessels, to be ergonomic, curved, right sized to go over lipsticks and have a seamless ying/yang attachment to the lipsticks proved to be a garganteous challenge the most prolific packaging engineers said could not be done. It took years and years, The design is now patented. The reality is I am zigging while the industry is zagging so everything continueds to be a challenge. The beauty industry by in large is a mass produced industry in which minimum production runs are in the thousands of pieces, though easily hundreds of thousands of manufacturing. While I am trying to create breath of designs not depth. Unheard of in this industry. But here I am, having learned to let go, surrender and trust the process, challenges and all. Because what I know for a fact is that the challenges will always remain. How I learn and respond to each circumstance and live life fully while I am experiencing this is what really matters.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

What I had to unlearn ironically when I created Valdé was all the conventional wisdom. I literally had to throw it all away and pretend I knew nothing. Because it was the conventional wisdom that would paralize me from moving forward.
There is something to be said that entrepreneurs have which is the right dose of naivete, grit and determination.
I knew I was taking a big risk and there is nothing in the books that would have backed up my rationale of a new approach.
Everyting I knew about beauty like price structure, process, brand development, formula for launch, newness, everying I have had to re-think.
And while the jury is still out on how history will tell this story, I am liberated by no longer being held by how things are done.
I am now completely comfortable being uncomfortable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://valdebeauty.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaritaarriagada/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/margarita.arriagada.94/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margarita-arriagada/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/marg_arriagada

Image Credits
Amelia Joyce for the portrait photo https://www.ameliajoyce.com/