Aurora Diaz and The Jefas – revolutionizing the Latina beauty space

Aurora Diaz, BA ’12 (public relations), has had an entrepreneurial spirit since she was a young girl. The UO alumna recalls capitalizing on her parents’ yard sale as a child for a sale of her own–lemonade and cookies from her family’s pantry. 

Today, that entrepreneurial mindset serves Diaz well, as she works tirelessly to scale The Jefas, a first-of-its-kind beauty platform with aspirations to be the Sephora for Latina-founded brands.  

Spanish for “the bosses,” The Jefas brings together Latina beauty founders and those looking to support Latina-owned brands. Diaz said the idea to found the company was born amid the rising trend of subscription boxes around 2014 and 2015, when she noticed that there was nothing for Latina beauty brands. Having worked for both startups and beauty retailers, she knew there was a major untapped opportunity and an increasing demand. 

“I started to do a little bit of research on spending power, spending trends within the Latina consumer and started to discover that there was a really big rise in the number of Latina founded beauty brands that were being created,” Diaz said. “However, a lot of these brands still to this day don’t have the same resources as the Estée Lauders of the world to get their product in large retailers.” 

Diaz started by building an online community, The Jefas Group, on audio-focused social networking site Clubhouse. As she grew the audience around topics related to beauty, lifestyle, and career, she also continued to grow in her own career, moving from startups to roles with large tech companies like Google and Meta. 

All the while, Diaz knew she wanted to scale The Jefas into a consumer brand. Access to startup funding and the COVID-19 pandemic were major challenges, but she was determined. The Bay Area native used her networking skills to build connections in Silicon Valley while she saved money to start the business. 

“During the pandemic, I was getting involved in cohorts and programs and pre-accelerators, incubators—you name it—so I could just be a sponge and get the knowledge as to how to build this business. I always like to note that the business has officially launched this year, but even prior to that I was out learning and becoming a founder, years in the making, because it’s a lot of information—especially for first-time founders.” 

As a first-generation Mexican American and first-generation college graduate, Diaz is no stranger to paving her own way through uncharted territory and underrepresented spaces. She speaks candidly about the challenges she faced at the UO, adjusting to the university environment in a new state, as the first person in her family to go to college, as well as the challenges of entering an industry historically made up of predominantly White men. 

“I think being one of the only Latinas in those [tech] spaces was a reflection, unfortunately, of being at the University of Oregon, where the Latino population was very low when I was there . . . At the same time, however, that prepared me to be in those [tech] spaces because I had already gone through that at [the UO],” Diaz said. “Had I navigated a completely different, maybe more diverse space, I don’t think it would have prepared me to be successful in a place such as Google, because imposter syndrome is real.” 

Having experienced firsthand what it’s like to navigate these underrepresented spaces, Diaz is thrilled at the opportunity to create space for Latina brands and be a part of their success as they launch. 

“That’s my favorite part of building this business—getting to network with other founders, women founders, Latina founders. And we are really bringing forth a community of other founders, elevating them, creating a platform for them to sell their products, get more eyes on the product . . . and that’s extremely rewarding for me.” 

The Jefas officially launched earlier this year, dropping its first beauty subscription box in May. Within two hours, Diaz’s full inventory of the boxes was sold out. Another subscription box is dropping soon, and a full e-commerce website is planned in the coming months.  

“It's revolutionary. It's the first of its kind. And although there are 28 million Latinas in the US alone, we don't have a place to shop from other Latina founded beauty brands . . . so it's creating space.” 

The new company has also seen great success in pitch competitions. The Jefas is currently a finalist in the Black Ambition Prize competition for Black and Latine/x entrepreneurs, which offers a $1 million prize to the top finalist.  

In addition to her business ventures, Diaz volunteers as a steering committee member for the Patos Alumni Network, creating connections with other Latine/x UO alumni, students, and faculty.  

“I saw it as my way of giving back—whether it’s my resources, my network, my time—to ensure that the next generation of Patos and of Latino students from the University of Oregon have access to those resources that I may not have had,” she said. “It’s really important that we give back. And if it weren’t for us starting to be those changemakers, then who is going to step up and do it?” 

 

—By April Miller, UO Alumni Association assistant director of marketing and communications