March 28, 2024

OG influencer Camila Coelho on her skincare secrets and newly-launched clean beauty brand

Now, after creating a successful fashion brand, Camila Coelho Collection, she’s ventured into beauty with Elaluz. Camila has created a ‘mindfully luxurious brand’ putting ‘inclusivity, sustainability and transparency’ at the heart of its ethos.

Camila Coelho is the internet’s go-to for beauty, fashion, and hair inspiration – if you’re an avid user of Instagram, you probably follow her. Having started out as one of the original influencers (formally what we called bloggers), Camila paved the way for a new generation of multihyphenate, social media-based entrepreneurs.

Here, Camila speaks to GLAMOUR about all things beauty, from the products she can’t live without, and her favourite red carpet looks. .

I never dreamed I would have my own brand or beauty brand growing up

I’ve always been a beauty lover since I was a little girl, but I never thought as a little girl growing up in such a small town that I would one day have my own brand or beauty brand. I wore red lipstick in my passport photo when I was six years old, I just wanted it so bad and my grandmother gave it to me. She was my beauty icon. I would always see her done up, even when she was just in the kitchen cooking for us.

I worked at a makeup counter when I was 18…

I worked at a makeup counter when I was 18 selling products and that’s when I really realised how empowering and powerful and transformative beauty is. And I decided to become a makeup artist. It was during my makeup artist years that I found social media and from social media, I started working with other brands and then started creating my own.

Elaluz is all about inner light…

The idea to create Elaluz has been there for a few years, of course, but we finally felt like it was the right time. It was over two years ago and when thinking of Elaluz, I thought to myself ‘okay, what is this brand going to be like? What is it going to represent? What is the name going to be? ’ For some reason, I didn’t want it to be my name. I wanted it to have a stronger meaning. I wanted to have light in the name, because light has played such a huge role in my life and I feel like light is transformative. Elaluz means ‘she is light’. It’s empowering, our inner light, that light that comes from within that we all have.

I wanted to create a lifestyle brand…

It was important to me that this brand was not only going to have makeup, but skincare, hair. So, instead of creating a full-on line of products like lipsticks and foundations and in loads of different colourways, I wanted to instead concentrate on the products that I truly believe in, that I truly believe every woman should have. So we call it our heroes, the essentials. Elaluz is all about the essential products. I have all this makeup at home that I get from brands, but I’m always going to the essentials at the end of the day because those are the products that I’m actually going back to the store and buying again.

I knew creating a ‘clean’ beauty brand was going to be the biggest challenge…

I knew it was going to be a challenge to create products that are clean, that have clean formulas, but that really work. It took a little bit longer than we expected because of all the many challenges and limits when you’re clean.

Guys, skincare is so important…

The most essential skincare product for me is an oil, I put it on after my moisturiser, but before my makeup. It’s almost like that primer before your makeup, that’s going to help your foundation blend in better and to give you that glowy finish at the end.

An All Day Beauty Water was also top of my list to create; I use it at all stages, when I have a bare face, when I have makeup on, it just calms my skin down.

I feel like I’ve had a lot of challenges in my life and a lot of moments where I felt insecure…

I didn’t know what I was going to be in life, but I’ve always followed my heart. I grew up in Brazil, in a very small town where I had very limited access to things and the world, in general. I moved to the United States with my family and from seeing my mom work so hard after a divorce, I was inspired to be independent. I was an honor roll student in high school, I was a geek in school. I had very great grades, but then when it came time for me to apply for college, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. So I didn’t go to college, I followed my heart at that moment and I ended up getting a job at a makeup counter, and that’s where my life really transformed – back in 2010 I started to create makeup videos on YouTube, and the rest is history.

The Met Gala last year was an unforgettable beauty moment…

A glam moment that it’s unforgettable to me because it was just such an epic moment of my life and my career in general, was my glam for the Met Gala last year. It was my first time going to the Met Gala and I went with Diane Von Furstenberg.

I was one of the first influencers to attend the Met Gala and being invited by such an amazing iconic designer and being accepted and approved to go, was such a pinch-me moment. Jen Atkin did my hair, I was actually representing Diane when she was younger, so I had full hair extensions in. I will never forget that night.

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