Mexico’s AORA Is the First Fully Plastic-Free Brand to Launch at Sephora

When Nour Tayara and Rodrigo Peñafiel began pitching the idea for AORA, a luxury color cosmetics brand that’s entirely plastic-free, the co-founders were met with skepticism. They were told consumers wouldn’t buy it and retailers wouldn’t take the risk. “We were told sustainability was too niche,” Tayara tells Refinery29 Somos. But those doubts only motivated them even more. “Every ‘no’ reinforced that we weren’t solving a small problem. We were challenging decades of assumptions about how beauty products had to be made.” Now, just three years after launching in Mexico City and becoming Mexico’s fastest-growing beauty brand, AORA is making its Sephora debut on July 17, becoming the first fully plastic-free beauty brand ever carried by the beauty retailer. The brand’s cult-favorite products — including the ACARÍCIAME Hydrating & Smoothing Solid Lip Gloss Serum, ACARÍCIAME MÁS Spicy Plumping Chili-Infused Solid Lip Gloss Serum, INIC