ABOUT RAFAEL
I'm Rafael. I help people build beauty brands. That's the short version. The longer version involves a lot of lab visits, packaging samples, late-night spreadsheets, and an unhealthy number of opinions about pump mechanisms.
Atlanta to LA
I was born in Atlanta to a Mexican mother and an American father. Growing up between two cultures meant I was always paying attention to the little differences in how people chose things. The products my mom kept on her vanity looked nothing like what my friends' parents had in their bathrooms. I didn't think much of it at the time, but that awareness stuck with me. When I was around ten, my mom got a position at a marketing firm in Los Angeles, so we packed up and moved west. LA became home pretty quickly. The energy there, the diversity, the fact that everyone seemed to be building something. It shaped how I think about brands and products more than any class ever did.
How I got into beauty
During college I landed an internship at a small cosmetics company in downtown LA. It was not glamorous. I was organizing shade samples, labeling shipment boxes, sitting quietly in the corner during lab calls, and running errands for the founder whenever she needed an extra pair of hands. But something about watching a product go from a messy bench sample to a finished unit on a shelf completely fascinated me. I started asking questions nobody expected the intern to ask. How do you pick a contract manufacturer? Why did we go with this closure instead of that one? What does the retailer actually care about during a line review? The founder was generous enough to let me sit in on those conversations, and I absorbed everything I could. By the time I graduated, I knew I didn't want a normal marketing job. I wanted to be in the middle of the process, where the product actually gets made.
Finding my lane
After the internship I started freelancing for a couple of indie founders who needed operational help. They had great formulas or strong brand ideas but no clue how to navigate the supply chain, manage a timeline, or talk to a packaging vendor without getting taken for a ride. I became the person who figured that stuff out. One project turned into two, then five, then I lost count. Over the years I've worked on launches and relaunches across skincare, haircare, fragrance, and color cosmetics. I've built relationships with labs, contract manufacturers, packaging houses, cosmetic chemists, brand designers, and retail buyers across the US, Europe, and Asia. Most of those relationships started because I was just the guy showing up, following up, and doing what I said I was going to do.
What I do now
These days I work with founders and small teams who are serious about bringing a beauty product to market or fixing one that isn't performing the way it should. I help with everything between the idea and the shelf. Positioning, sourcing, formulation coordination, packaging development, retail strategy, go-to-market planning. I only work in beauty because it's the only industry where I actually know the people, the regulations, the weird quirks, and the shortcuts that save you months. I'm not trying to be an agency or build a big team. I like working closely with a small number of brands at a time so I can actually be useful.
Outside of work
I still live in LA. I spend too much money at farmers markets. I have strong opinions about fonts on packaging that nobody asked for. And if you ever want to talk about the difference between a good airless pump and a bad one, I'm probably the only person at the party who will be excited about that conversation.