Post-Divorce, This Mexicana Created an Eyeshadow Palette Inspired By Female Heroes Of the Mexican Revolution
Photo via victress_bylili
After her divorce, Liliana Camacho was depressed. “It was terrible,” she said in an exclusive interview with FIERCE. “I actually put myself through therapy for about a year.” In a session, her therapist asked her if she had a dream that she always wanted to accomplish, but didn’t because she was so focused on her marriage. For Liliana, it was starting a business. Thus, “Victress”— a makeup line designed to celebrate victory in the face of adversity — was born.
Victress is a Latina-owned makeup line dedicated to boosting women’s self esteem and helping them become the best version of themselves.
With the slogan being “The beauty of empowerment,” Camacho doesn’t see Victress as just a brand, but as a movement. “It’s more empowerment and encouragement on anything that you put yourself through,” she told FIERCE. “Whether it’s starting something, like a business, or just even confidence itself. I wanted it to be something motivational.”
On her Instagram page, she promotes Victress’s lashes and hyper-pigmented palettes, but she also posts daily motivational stories to inspire her followers. “You never know who’s that one person who just needs to read the message and is going to be like, ‘Yes!'” Camacho told FIERCE. “There’s always people that are struggling, they’re just not open about it. Even if they go on social media and they’re looking at makeup for distraction, they’re going to come across a motivational quote that’s going to trigger something in them.”
As an ode to female strength, Victress recently launched its Las Adelitas palette, an eyeshadow palette directly inspired by the female soldiers who fought alongside men during the Mexican Revolution.
As Liliana Camacho wrote on the Victress website, she chose to feature Las Adelitas because of how, like many women, they have been historically under-appreciated. Camacho decided to use her platform as a business owner to honor them and their legacy. “I’m very in tune with my culture and I wanted to portray that,” she said. “I was like, ‘Okay, these women were warriors but they’re not well-known. Why aren’t they well known? Of course, because they were women.’”
Liliana saw Las Adelitas as inspiring figures. “I wanted to just honor their history and use it, again, as a format to inspire other people,” she said. “Like, look at these people who did all these things. They still didn’t get recognition, but that doesn’t take away from everything they did.”
“These women were mothers, they were wives,” Liliana explained to FIERCE. “They did traditional domestic roles and they still had the courage and strength to go to war.”
“So to me, that represents the typical woman. You go to work, you take care of the kids, you take care of the home. You literally can do it all. Even though sometimes it feels like you’re breaking and it’s a huge challenge, we still get it done somehow some way.”
Liliana also believes that the Las Adilitas palette can help Mexican-Americans honor their heritage. “I think products like these that have such a history connect you to your roots,” she said. “It prevents you from losing touch with where you came from.”
You can buy the Las Adilitas palette here for $35.99. Or check out the rest of the Victress line at victressbylili.com
