Check out my IVF journey - and my hometown story - over at the always awesome Ventura Blvd Magazine:

“There was no clean beauty brand that was authentic and outwardly speaking to the Latina community, despite our spending power, and there was no clean beauty brand that understood how different we all are, how three-dimensional, and that didn’t lump us all together.”

Around the same time, Ann was in the middle of a challenging fertility journey. When she began the IVF process, her doctors warned her off deodorant and beauty products with fragrance, because they contain ingredients believed to hinder egg transfers. Shocked, Ann kicked off a self-motivated research project. Among her discoveries: Latinas outspend their counterparts in the beauty market. Latinas also have higher levels of problematic substances (such as phthalates, considered disruptive to the endocrine system) in their bloodstream. And researchers have correlated some of these ingredients with fertility struggles and diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Ann also discovered that the beauty industry is largely unregulated.

Continue reading here.