About Us
Our refillable lip collection features richly pigmented shades, impossibly sensuous textures and formulas that are clean, cruelty-free and vegan. Each lipstick or balm fits interchangeably into a Valdé Armor of your choosing. These collectible vessels have been crafted with meticulous attention to aesthetic form and performance…the antithesis of disposable beauty.
Valdé was founded by Margarita Arriagada, a fashion, home interiors and beauty industry veteran and champion of women entrepreneurs. Having begun as an homage to her mother’s courage and determination, Valdé has become an artistic tribute to all women. A call to action for each individual to overcome fear, strip away preconceptions and write her own destiny. “The freedom to discover who and what you want to be is the ultimate gift a woman can give herself. It is the legacy my mom left me, and the one I wish to leave my daughter.”
Ultimately, Valdé is a passionate celebration of this spirit of self-discovery, of embracing our vulnerabilities and appreciating all that has made us who we are. All that makes you, very you.
We’ve been told beauty can be influenced.
Copied step-by-step from hi-def screens.
Our truth: beauty is original.
It’s never been about “good” genes or
aspiring to be a version of someone else.
It’s having the courage to become your true self
and the confidence to share her with the world.
We know beauty can’t be confined to a bottle, tube or trend.
It thrives with the freedom to navigate our own destinies.
To live boldly, with emphasis. To be very you.
– VALDÉ
Our Founder
Margarita Arriagada
Margarita Arriagada has spent three decades discovering and cultivating many of the great designers, artists and founders in beauty, fashion and home interiors. Now, she introduces us to an incredibly unique beauty brand…her own.
An Homage
The women in this vintage photo are decidedly glamorous and strong. Yet I am always struck by the emphasis with which each woman projects herself, especially my mother—she’s the one in the beret.
Like many women, my mother will always be my greatest inspiration. She was a powerful force—all five feet of her.
Born into a family of celebrated Peruvian artists and poets, my mom was spontaneous and full of life. In my father, an exacting and strict engineer of aristocratic lineage, she found her opposite. An act of love and defiance, their marriage would not last.
My mother left behind a life of material comfort in Peru, boldly venturing out on her own with my older brother, younger sister and me, age 12, in tow. She arrived in Los Angeles with few material possessions but with a growing sense of liberation. As a single parent, my mom took three jobs to put food on the table for us, yet she never complained. In fact, what I remember most profoundly is her singing and dancing all the time. Somehow, she was happy.
I now understand her happiness came from freedom, the freedom to navigate her own destiny. As she battled to build a new life for us, I would marvel at her ritual of applying lipstick—it was like a glamorous coat of armor. It was her way to honor herself and to project to the outside world how strong and capable she felt inside.
Valdé is my homage to her—her fearlessness, her femininity, her self-determination. It is also a celebration of the journey every woman must take to realize who and what she is meant to be. Valdé is you—it is us with emphasis.
