Eco-friendly Pyra Beauty Hydrates the Skin and Helps Protect the Earth
This all-natural cosmetics line is all about keeping skin and the earth beautiful and healthy.
Pyra Beauty’s products, like the foundation and setting powder, are made of natural ingredients. Photo by Jeff Honforloco.
Angelica Romero’s life changed about a decade ago during her experience inside a salt mine in her native country, Colombia. One hundred and eighty meters below the earth, she stood surrounded by gold, minerals and natural deposits and felt closer to the earth. Mesmerized by the purity and organic reality of it all, she channeled her newfound admiration into creating Pyra Beauty.
Romero grew up and learned English in Rhode Island and graduated from Central Falls High School. As Pyra Beauty founder, a beauty blogger and consumer of cosmetics, Romero decided to go into the makeup business for many reasons. The main reason, however, is because a family member back in Colombia was diagnosed with skin cancer.
“I started sending things to Colombia and learning more about ingredients,” says Romero. “I was already on the pathway for it and the research for the formulas was based on personal reasons.”
The inspiration of the makeup brand’s name, Pyra, is the pyrite stone, which symbolizes fire (fun fact: The Greek word for fire is “Pyr”). Pyrite is also known as “fool’s gold,” which symbolizes good luck and wealth and protects against negative energy.
“I love the meaning behind it because I believe beauty is inside out, if you think about radiance and glowing from within,” says Romero. “From a cultural perspective, the pyrite stone is very common in Colombia. It comes up when people are mining and finding emeralds because we have natural sites for all these natural properties.”
Angelica Romero.
With Pyra Beauty, Romero focuses on delivering effective skin care products with clean and hydrating properties in it. She makes sure to implement as many plant-based ingredients as possible, starting with the foundation, which is 90 percent plant-based, includes vitamins A, C and E and contains shea butter and aloe vera. The illuminators, infused with coconut extracts, and the setting powder, made with cranberry and green tea extracts, are both free from talc and parabens.
Romero is a big fan of the European guidelines for cosmetic products since they’ve banned way more unhealthy and toxic chemicals than the United States.
“It involves finding alternatives for common ingredients that we find in drug stores or brick and mortars,” says Romero, who researches and finds better options to use for ingredients. “It was fun finding alternatives and working to find really good formulations for them.”
Romero’s biggest tip for the summer, and throughout the year even, is to always wear sunscreen. Luckily, Pyra Beauty’s hydrating foundation can help with that. “Because of the shea butter concentration, it does have natural sunscreen,” says Romero. “It’s only an SPF of eight, so any product that we have, we recommend you apply sunscreen as well.”
All Pyra Beauty products are zero waste, meaning the packaging can be recycled or composted. “I want people to be inspired to get closer to nature,” says Romero. “I really wanted to create products that once you’re done with them, because they’re zero waste, you can use them as plant pots for creating a small garden in your backyard.” She encourages customers to get the most out of the products, then reuse and recycle the packaging.
Check out Pyra Beauty’s products by visiting the website or Instagram.
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