Brazil's Must-Have Brands
By Melanie, Local Contributor – Brazil
Melanie is 21-years old and lives in Brazil. She has brown eyes, brown and curly hair, and cool-toned, fair skin. She’s a future journalist, vegetarian, feminist, and the boldest Aries you’ll ever meet. One of her life goals is to be free of prejudice and hate as much as possible. She would love to work at a cultural magazine or write a cultural column.
Melanie attributes her interest in beauty products to Japanese men, because she was a big fan of J-rock, specifically Visual Kei, when she was younger. It inspired her to try to replicate some of the makeup looks the musicians wore! Her philosophy is simple: everyone is beautiful–every size, shape, hair, nose lips, hands, everything! You can follow her on Twitter or check out her blog!
Cityscape of Balneário Camboriú by emarquetti
Brazil’s Must-Have Brands
You probably know Brazil for Carnaval, bossa nova, Rio de Janeiro, and our football NT, but did you know Brazil is the second largest consumer of cosmetics in the world (recently passed Japan and now only behind USA)? There’s probably much more to see than you expected! Besides loving international brands like Avon (which is extremely popular around here), Maybelline, Lancôme, MAC, and many others, we have a huge variety of our own brands, each with something different for the beauty market. My mission here is to introduce you to this new world and show what we do best. These are some of the Brazilian brands I love and recommend. Enjoy!
Natura
Natura is our giant; it’s a market leader and international success (available in other seven countries in Latin America as well as France). What makes Natura special is their eco-friendly philosophy, use of local ingredients, and being cruelty-free. Their skincare and bath line named Natura Eko is a great example: all of its products have ingredients (fruits, seeds, herbs) specially picked with Brazil’s biodiversity in mind. I believe using a Natura Ekos product is like experiencing a little piece of Brazil!
Mahogany
When you think Mahogany, you think delicious and memorable scents, retro packaging, and a ‘chic’ feel. The brand is always aiming for international standards by investing in research and technology. They specialize in skin care, hair care, and fragrances. I love that we have a brand like Mahogany in Brazil, which is so quality-driven and is definitely able to surprise even the most demanding consumers.
Contém 1g
Variety, quality, pretty packaging, and innovation: Contém 1g has it all. Brazilian makeup brands are, most of the time, just trying to catch up to international trends. Of course, Contém 1g does that, too, but they’re always developing new products and doing it their own way. The downside is that their products are inconsistent; most are amazing but others just don’t work. The products they do get right are quite worth the try, though, and courage always deserves praise.
Duda Molinos
This is a new brand that has already won the hearts of Brazilian women. It’s named after one of the most famous makeup artists in Brazil, and it really seems to use his expertise to create great products at rather reasonable price. The key words for this brand are: potential, quality and boldness. So far, it is really promising.
Hits! Specialità
With its cute, slim bottles and well-picked colors, Hits! is the brand of fashionable women. You won’t find a plain red or a baby pink on their shelves. Hits! focuses on trendy, different, and classy colors as well as glitter nail polish (which are really hard to find here), to make the collections of Brazilian nail polish addicts complete.
O Boticário
This is the second largest brand of cosmetics in Brazil, which is also present in Portugal, Mexico, Japan and sixteen other countries. Although o Boticário has great makeup, skincare (including ‘Fun’, an indeed fun and surprising themed line), bath, hair care, and many other lines, their fragrances are the products that are the most influential and remembered for their quality. It’s almost cultural: most Brazilian girls get their first perfume from o Boticário. And, of course, the brand’s fragrances follow many of them through their lives.
Vult
I’m always impressed with the quality of Vult products. I love their eyeshadow: pigmented, buttery, long-lasting. Even though they’re a drugstore brand, and their prices compatible with the category, the makeup line specially can easily compete with our mid-end brands. How cool is this: to buy great products at great prices?
Love Natura products!
Yay! Me too, definitely one of my favorite brands ever.
i’m brazilian and agree that these are the best brazilian brands! i’d add to Tracta lipsticks XD
What a relief! You have no idea how difficult it was to pick the best brands.
Glad I succeded 😀
I love Natura, Duda Molinos and Mahogany as well!! Great post, I agree that those brands really represent a piece of our country!
=*
Thanks Lea 😀
What a small world we live in! I went to Balneário Camboriú in 2002 and thought I saw something familiar in this picture – wonderful people and wonderful athmosphere! Exciting to read about, I bought some products from o’ Boticario when I was there. Greetings from Norway, Happy Holidays, Stine
Aw, love for my country makes me really happy <3
Thanks!
Hits! has some of the best holographic nail polishes out there right now. I just ordered 3 bottles a couple weeks ago and they do not disappoint. Certainly agree with you!!
Really? I’ve never tried their holographics, but that’s great to know. Certainly will try them!
Camboriúuuuu!!!! (L) This picture ilustrates that Brazil isn’t just Rio and São Paulo! Loved it, Melanie! Never thought that someday I would see BC here in Temptalia!
I agree with you: Natura is the brand that truly represents Brazil. Although I don’t like their make-up cosmetics, I “cannot live without” their Ekos’ products. I think that their body-butters (specially the Cocoa and Almond ones) are great alternatives for The Body Shop’s body-butters, and their hand-butters are incomparable!
Mahogany isn’t a very popular brand, but I also like it a lot. Again, not the make-up cosmetics are the best ones… But Mahogany has a huge amount of moisturizers with scents for all tastes! Just like O Boticário.
About Contém 1g, I think that it would be bigger if their prices weren’t soooo expensive. They’ve got it all, but, when you compaires their prices with those ones from international brands (like MAC’s), you tends to desist of buying them. And it’s the same problem that happens to the make-up products from Duda Molinos: they have great quality, but not a fine price. To be honest, I think that Duda Molinos and Contém1g are the brands which have the best brazilian make-up products! However, for those who searchs for fair price + fair quality, Vult is the best option!
Hits’ Nail Enamels are… Well, Hits is the first brand that could make brazilians’ “nails dreams” come true. But there’s a huge problem about their logistics, which prevents them of covering the whole country.
And, since as Melanie mentioned Avon, I’d like to mention another brand that is becoming very strong here in Brazil: Mary Kay. But, just like Avon, there’s one thing that we brazilians must complain about those brands: why there are a lot of great products that aren’t launched in here? =/
Melanie, congratulations for your post and for beeing part of Temptalia’s team! =D
Sorry, people, about my bad english!
I wish you all have an excelent new year!
Hugs and kisses!
Don’t worry. Your English is perfect!
It was Christine who picked the photo! I agree with you that it was a great (and original) choice :]
I don’t know, most people say that about Contém 1g, but I personally think the brand does have pricey products but some have good values for their great quality. You just have to pick the right ones.
Thaaanks for your comment 😀
hi, where could we buy? I’ve looked for these online all over. and on mercado livre they won;t ship makeup to the USA 🙁
Natura is sold on magazines like Mary kay.. so you have to get somebody to send you what you’d like to have. I’ve seen natura being sold at the airport. Vult and duda molinos are drugstore brands. You can find them at sacks… but i’m not shure if they’ll ship it. The other ones are national stores, and again you have to get somebody from Brazil to send them to you.
Natura does have an online store, but it doesn’t ship to the US. Duda Molinos is the only one of those brands that is sold on Sacks (www.sacks.com.br), and maybe with the aliance between sacks and sephora, on 2012 Duda Molinos’ products would be sold in other countries. O Boticário has few stores abroad, but there isn’t any store located on US (there are stores at Moçambique, Venezuela, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia and in many european countries).
But Paula is right: if you know somebody that lives in Brazil, you can ask him/her to send some products to you. =]
I don’t know about Natura, I thought it was the easier of them to find. Maybe on Brazil-themed stores? IDK. Sadly, Contém 1g and Hits! do not have international online stores or are sold in the US.
The other brands I’m not sure. Will research and come back to tell you!
hits ships to other countries melanie 😀
I would recommend someone, a friend of mine who sells natura, but the costs to ship a small package to the USA are terrible!!
About $30.
I’m not sure its worth it for you! 🙁
What a great surprise to see my country in a Temptalia’s post!!!
In my opinion, the best make-up brand we have is Contém 1g. The quality and variety is amazing. However, they are a bit pricey, and I always end up buying the imported ones.
This is a very con here in Brazil: we have a great variety of brands, but the real good ones are expensive. That’s why we import so much! 😀
I know, sometimes I’m amazed about it myself 😛 But theres’s a lot more coming!
I love Contém! And I agree about the products being kinda expensive, you have to carefully pick the ones that are worth their price.
I think out of all of there, C1G is the worst. I don’t even consider buying there anymore. Maybe you don’t have Vult in your city, have you tried it ? It’s like a blush for 7 reais and very pigmented and long-lasting. Ugly packaging tough =(
I live in Brazil as well, and I really think it’s great that our country started some own brands of makeup and stuff, but I do think we are miles away from a high end brand and worth products when it comes to makeup. I just can’t put up with the fact that we have to pay such an outrageous price for products that are comparable to drugstore quality ones. Some of them work fine (nothing out of this world, though), but the majority is just not good enough when you check the price tag… sad thing.
Aww ):
Well, I try to compare Brazilian products to themselves, since there’s a whole context in which they are developed and sold. In that notion, I think it would be unfair to compare them with products from the US or Europe.
true and true !
I love these brands, specially Hits polishes and anything Boticário.
Contém 1g has really some really great products, but unfortunatelty too expensive and not always worth it: I’d rather pay a bit more and buy MAC or Kryolan for a truly professional performance.
For example, Contém 1g has recently lauched some matte lipsticks, but these aren’t any better than Vult’s mattes… Vults products are really great, and wallet-friendly 🙂
I really liked this list!!!
Thanks, Luciana 😀
<3 Natura, specially the Castaña cream for hands (No idea how to say castaña in english hehe)
Im from Brazil and, Im sorry to say but the products here sucks. Yes, we have some quality brands, like Natura, Duda Molinos and Contem 1g, but the price is insane! What are they thinking?! Boticario is the worst, we pay the double for a product that is much cheaper in Portugal for example :S And another thing that I really hate is the lack of variety. None of those brands has a huge line like Mac, with different shades and finishes 🙁
Everything! Brazil is such a fascinating place – I hope to visit someday. 🙂
Yay, that’s awesome!
Hope you get the chance to come!
I looove my Natura Ekos Castanha hand cream, it smells amazing!
Of all the brands listed I only know Natura, the other ones are not available here in Chile 🙁
im from chile too and that cream is my favourite its the only handcream that works for me
Specialità polishes are SO PRETTY, especially the holographic ones. I would order them and have them shipped to my house in the US, but I’m highly allergic to toluene and formaldehyde, so I can’t use these polishes! It really angers me because they are SO FREAKIN’ PRETTY!!!! I keep yelling at the screen to make them 3 free so I can use them! (Life is so unfair sometimes.)
Aw, that’s sad D:
I hope they make their polishes 3-free soon!
Hey, that’s where I live!! Nice example of our most popular brands!! I wouldn’t have thought to include Mahogany, but it’s a nice brand for body products! My absolute favorite brand for body products however is called Emporio Body Store, it’s amazing, and it actually has an obline store.
If someone from another country could try only one brazilian brand, I would or sure recommend Natura!
emporio store, good choice!!! It’s amazing, the smell, the touch, its new, but I really like that store.. The only thing that I did not like is the price, because it’s expesive, but worth any coin!
Brazil is such a far reaching country for us, the Asians. So glad to hear beauty news from the other side of the hemisphere =D
And I’m glad to be the one bringing the news ;D
I went to RdJ in ’09 and I loved *everything* about Brazil! The food, the culture, the weather, the people and fresh coconut at every beach stand!
That’s great to hear! I’m really proud of my country and its people 😀 Thanks!
I love natura, specially the creams, i cant live without my chestnut hand cream
Okay, that’s kind of funny – my Brazilian ex-boyfriend bought me an o Boticário perfume when we were dating … what does that mean? xD
Ahaha, no idea. Maybe he just wanted to be original, bringing something from his country?
Did you like it? 😀
It’s true! I’m from Brazil, and I just LOVE IT all those brands that Melanie choose. The price is very friendly, and all of them have great, great and high quality!
And I just wanna to say that I love Temptalia, you’re my guru of cosmetics, I’ve always came here first, then I decide to buy something or not to *lol*. And I just love it that post, the whole idea of this Must Have posts it’s great, and I’m very pleasant that my country, my love, shows up here, at Temptalia!
Love,
Paty
@gihh
Thank you Paty!
Thanks Paty! It was really hard choosing just some brands to represent our beauty market in whole… So it makes me happy to hear that people liked my choices 😀
Melanie, i’m brazilian too and i love your selection! i just would add yes cosmetics but i think you did a great job here, congrats 😀
I miss being able to buy Contem 1g and O Boticario stuff! I live in Canada now, so usually when I go to Brasil to visit family I have to stock up on my favourite products. Brazilian nail polishes are also worth checking out! They’re super cheap compared to OPI for example, and have amazing colours. I recommend the brands Colarama and Risqué.
The funny thing is that the cheaper brands with messy shelfs and plastic packaging like Vult and Tracta are way better than the pricier ones with stores on the best malls etc. like O Boticário. I live in Rio and Vult is a craze around here, even though it’s hard to find. It’s one of my favourite brands along with Maybelline and MAC !