Babba Rivera is a loving wife, mother, and brand owner of the hair care line Ceremonia. Her love for hair began as a bonding moment with her father, a salon owner. Every morning, he’d take on his first client—his daughter. A young Rivera would sit in her father’s chair as he would style her hair for school. These were not only true bonding moments between father and daughter—but also the breeding ground for a passion that would turn into a career.
Rivera’s upbringing inspired her to create a hair care line to celebrate Latinx hair’s versatility. This passion stemmed from her hair struggles as she grew up in Sweden, where many didn’t look like her and products didn’t cater to her needs. “When I was old enough to do my hair, I would get up extremely early just to straighten it. As I got old, I realized this wasn’t me ‘caring for my hair,’ it was a chore,” Rivera tells Beautycon after her Latinx Heritage Month panel at her Flagship store last week. She would then move on to explore different hair products and study their served purpose.
“Hair products were created for styling and not to maintain healthy hair at that time.” This hard realization only fueled Rivera’s mission to create sustainable products with natural ingredients from Latin America. In 2020, they launched their first product, Aciete de Moska, a native Dominican scalp treatment oil. The award-winning scalp oil is silicon-free and made with various oils sourced from Latin America. The product intends to nourish the scalp while promoting healthy hair growth. It’s received rave reviews for its ability to promote healthy hair for various textures.
Creating impactful, healthy hair products is only one of the missions on Ceremonia’s agenda. There has also been a gap and much-needed conversation about what being Latinx looks like. Rivera struggles to express the variety of Latinx people and hair textures to investors. “They would ask me, ‘What is the Latinx hair type?’ and I would say there isn’t one.” It was a clear indicator for Rivera that the view of Hispanic culture was skewed. She turned her frustrations of over-explaining into expression, ensuring representation was at the forefront of the brand.
Ceremonia portrays diversity through a lens of love for the Hispanic culture. Every campaign is an homage to different hair types, textures, and lengths. After years of being told our “pelo esta malo,” a brand finally created a safe space for Latinx people of all colors to feel seen and hear their hair needs. That said, the brand works to actively heal a generation of hair trauma that has yearned for healing for so long.
For the culture, it is a big step forward; however, it’s only the beginning Rivera. “My mission is to put Latin American culture on the map,” she says. “There’s so much beauty in all cultures and in Latin America. I want to continue to push those bounds and show the world what our culture has to offer.”
