Get to know the story of Paula, creator and founder of OR Natural, a personal care products company focused on clean production and free from synthetic actives. 

My connection with nature came from as long as I can remember, my maternal grandmother was raised on a farm and with little access to doctors and pharmacies, so she and her 9 sisters acquired a lot of knowledge in the medicinal properties of plants, both in health, self-care and personal hygiene. 

This heritage has always been very present in my life and for me it was very common to take care of my hair with aloe vera, to use teas to treat infections and even living on farms and in environments with lots of greenery were part of my upbringing.

I have a degree in Business Administration and an MBA in Marketing and Branding, having worked for 10 years among the best fashion brands in Minas Gerais. 

That’s when the pandemic hit, and what was supposed to be 40 days took up all our time and we were all forced to return home, literally.

During this period, I was already on a personal quest for sustainable options that would reduce waste production.

I’ve been spending more time with my family and I’ve been talking about my latest discovery: Natural shampoo bars!

I was completely enchanted by the idea of being able to replace conventional plastic bottles, which take around 400 years to decompose! 

To my surprise, My grandmother Luzia said that this was nothing new, in her day that’s how they did it! They extracted coconut oil, aloe, rosemary and made bars with the ashes from the wood stove to clean the hair.

It was the trigger for the start of a very strong process of recovering these memories, honoring my ancestry and the femininity of my generations. I kept improving the recipes, looking for new technologies and started making some test bars. 

What at first was a hobby grew in importance and I saw myself faced with something that could have an impact on many people’s lives, with a natural option for bathing, free from toxins and polluting active ingredients from the packaging to the foam.

So I took the decision to become an entrepreneur and invited my sister Isis, who is an engineer, to be my partner.

Isis took the idea to another level of professionalization, automating the processes and regulating the company with public bodies. 

A curiosity: The name was missing! We wanted to pay tribute to our grandmother Luzia, who inspired us with her recipes and passed on this legacy of knowledge about herbs and plants. 

Do you know who gave us “OR Natural”? Marcela Ohana! That’s right, Dash’s creative mind also had a hand in our story! OR is Light in Hebrew, prefixed by Luzia which means “the one who radiates light”.

Today, the brand is inaugurating the segment’s first industrial park in the metropolitan region of Minas Gerais, exactly on the farm where we spent a large part of our childhood, transforming not only my family’s life, but also that of the neighboring farmers who produce a large part of our raw materials.

I feel fulfilled! I was able to combine my professional life with my purpose in life.

The “water less beauty” concept is something that is here to stay and I am very proud that we are taking the name of Minas Gerais with OR Natural, bringing clean production, free of synthetic actives that are good for our bodies and the planet

Follow us on social media: @ornaturalbr