Beauty Spotlight: Filipinta Beauty Is Recreating Childhood Nostalgia
From banana ketchup to pandesal, beauty brand Filipinta Beauty has all the Filipino classics — just try not to eat them! Filipinta, translated to “face paint for Filipinas,” is home to cosmetics, candles and soaps intentionally crafted to mimic Filipino food. EnVi talked to founder Hana Acabado about the brand’s success and taking a step back to focus on motherhood.
Missing Home
Acabado was born and raised in the Philippines. She often moved around, gathering a plethora of precious memories growing up. It wasn’t until she met her now-husband that Acabado decided to move to the United States almost nine years ago. Acabado has since moved from Los Angeles to New York City, eventually settling in upstate New York with her husband and two children.
Although Acabado has established herself in the States with her family and newfound friends and community, she still longs for home — the rich culture she left in the Philippines. “I’m homesick every single day. That’s why I created Filipinta Beauty in the first place, because I needed an outlet for me to tap into [my] childhood or my life in the Philippines that I really can’t have here anymore,” Acabado says. “It’s funny, too, because when I went to the Philippines five years ago, it was very different from how I remembered it. Everything and everyone moved on. The sense of belonging that I used to have [is] not the same.” With knowledge that she is one of many immigrants craving to reconnect to their home countries, Acabado created her brand to tap back into “home.”
The Journey From Concept to Reality
With Acabado as the face of the brand, Filipinta Beauty has seen a strong performance for five years. Despite how things may look, however, the road to success was not a simple one. In fact, Acabado admits to not having an interest in makeup at all when she was growing up. Her best friend, Filipinta’s co-founder and creative director Jasel Donato, has been the makeup guru of the two since high school. Meanwhile, Acabado leaned more into drawing and painting —her creative outlets since early childhood.
“I’ve been obsessed with it since I gained consciousness. I remember I was maybe six years old when I started obsessively drawing,” Acabado shares, laughing lightly when asked about her passion for art. “My mom is really into arts as well, so that was [our] bonding. We would always paint together, sew and discover different ways and mediums to express ourselves.” Eventually this passion grew into a career as an illustrator, newly published author and product and brand designer.
In 2019, Acabado was a new mother staying at home and taking care of her baby when the idea for Filipinta came to mind. Originally, Filipinta was a conceptual makeup brand created to diversify her design portfolio. She decided to take it a step further by creating physical products, building a website and social media profiles to see how Filipinta would perform. After receiving a high level of interest from people who saw the concept, she prepared to make the brand official. After launching the first product, the Diwata Eye Shadow Palette, Acabado was surprised that it sold out right away.
“I didn’t expect it to go up the way it did because Jasel and I used to do different little businesses. It never really worked out, so I thought at the time this was […] going to be the same [as] the other ones. When I told her about it, she was very excited and we put up our first collection online, and overnight it literally blew up,” Acabado recalls. Since then, Filipinta has succeeded with multiple sold-out limited edition sets and popular items over the years.
Operations of a Two-Person Small Business
Filipinta began exclusively in the Philippines with Donato running most of the business operations. Though the business was doing well, running a business between the Philippines and New York became a complicated process. While Acabado took charge of designing product packaging, Donato took on the responsibility of making, packing and shipping the products herself. Running a business with operations distributed across the world came with its own set of challenges.
A notable challenge was the legal aspect. The pair soon discovered that there was much more to the process than just filing taxes and opening the business. “We both did not know anything about this and we were thrust into this business without preparation,” Acabado said.
Taking everything into consideration, along with running the business during the COVID-19 pandemic, Acabado decided to close the business in the Philippines. To ensure satisfactory production quality, she decided to reopen the business on U.S. grounds. Through trial and error, paired with the guidance of her best friend, Acabado taught herself to make the products and run a cosmetics brand. “I think it was the best option for me to just bring everything to the U.S.,” Acabado said.
Now that Filipinta is in the United States., Acabado works on creating the products and packaging, ships orders and creates content. Donato acts as the brand’s creative director, overseeing all concepts and color palette choices. “I don’t do anything without her because she knows what I like. Especially with the colors of the eyeshadow palettes, for example,” Acabado said. “I don’t know how she got that skill of knowing which colors go together, because I didn’t even know there were neutral tones, warm tones and cool tones and they can’t be [mixed]. It was very specific, very technical and I can’t believe she knows how to do things because I don’t,” she muses.
Despite facing hardships over the years, Acabado holds her best friend in high regard as a business partner. “We work well together, maybe because we’ve known each other since we were children,” Acabado says with a smile. Though the two have kept this business model, they hope to bring Filipinta Beauty back to the Philippines someday.
Conceptual and Functional Art
“I’m not a minimalist at all, but I like that kind of craziness. I love that,” Acabado says about her inspirations for her brand. Acabado takes inspiration from brands that have playful and colorful concepts. She also draws inspiration from Japanese packaging and the knowledge she gained from working for a design company. By honing her skills, experiences and personal ideas, Acabado creates Filipinta’s unique products.
“Functional art has always been something that I enjoy doing as a packaging designer, and makeup is a part of my artistic expression — so it was no surprise that these two things got melded together and gave birth to these little concoctions,” Acabado wrote in an Instagram post. All of Acabado’s work goes towards the packaging design — from the labels to the shipping boxes. And she is proud of her brand.
For some starter recommendations, Acabado shares some of her personal favorites: the Banana Ketchup Lip Gloss and Choc Nut-inspired Chapnot Lip Balm. The Banana Ketchup Lip Gloss is a classic and popular item with unexpected roots. Growing up with a love for banana ketchup, a Filipino treasure, Acabado woke up one day and considered turning the condiment into a lip gloss. “I thought that would be funny,” Acabado laughs. “[That day] when I shot […], edited and posted the video, it became one of the most popular ones.” For many reasons, including its chocolate scent, the Chapnot Lip Balm is Acabado’s go-to product.
Taking A Step Back
With the near-immediate success of Filipinta Beauty, Acabado was overwhelmed by audience demand for the brand. Acabado went from releasing limited-edition collections three times a year to mass producing and restocking items everyday. Despite having a strict schedule, doing everything — planning concepts, creating products, packing, shipping and content — by herself started cutting into her personal time.
“I think at the time I lost my vision and started to quickly produce [products]. It then started to feel [much less like] a small business. I felt like it was starting to become a company,” she says.
Acabado was a new mother when she launched Filipinta and had since then been juggling motherhood and work. Much of her schedule revolved around her young children. She tended to their needs and even had them “strapped on her back while they napped” as she worked in her studio. This lifestyle became unsustainable for her as her presence in her family’s life blurred into her work life. “There was one time when my son was saying, ‘I miss you because you work all the time,’ and that was it for me,” Acabado reveals. “I just realized at this point in my life, I’m in my era to be a mom.” This was a defining moment for her as she decided to go back to her previous, slower business model.
Once Acabado announced her decision, she went from creating hundreds of products a day to focusing on quality over quantity. With her comparatively liberated schedule, she has more time to create and rediscover her passion for art through this medium, rather than monetizing it. She has also been able to spend more time with her family and revisit old hobbies, such as sewing.
Even after scaling back, the work doesn’t stop for Acabado. She currently has two collections in production that are slated for release between August and October. One concept, she reveals, will be related to Filipino mythology. “It’s so exciting. We just finished one of the palettes so it’s gonna be crazy.”
Make sure to follow Acabado and her work on Instagram and Filipinta Beauty’s website. She has also published her first children’s book called “My Mama is a Work of Art,” which tackles the acceptance of tattoos in Filipino culture.
*Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Interested in more Filipinx-owned beauty brands? Read our interview with Jilleo Recio, founder of RĒJINS here!
