New Miami Beach Store Wairua Beauty Prioritizes Sophisticated Ingredient-Driven Products And Customer Education

When selecting products for Wairua Beauty, a luxury clean beauty boutique that opened last year in Sunset Harbour, a residential area of Miami Beach dotted with trendy shops, owner Azul Villa considers their formula first. “I ensure it lacks any harmful ingredients, incorporates high-quality actives in intelligent concentrations and avoids cheap petroleum-derived ingredients,” she says. “I aim for a sophisticated formula rather than a basic one.”

Wairua Beauty marks Villa’s debut business venture. Among the brands it carries are Wonder Valley, Augustinus Bader, Blue Lagoon Iceland, Lesse, Lendava, Josh Rosebrook, Rahua, Olio E Osso and De La Heart. It also offers in-store services ranging from facials to a body-sculpting, lymph-draining service called Wood Therapy.

Villa developed an interest in beauty as a business student at Universidad Austral in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she was born and raised. In her studies, Villa was fascinated to discover that, as she puts it, “Many beauty products were more about marketing than facts.”

After earning her business degree in 2019, she began studying cosmetic chemistry at Cosmetic Chemistry at Asociacion Argentina de Dermatologia in 2021. In 2022, she traveled to France to study natural fragrances and cosmetics at Grasse Institute of Perfumery. She moved to Miami in December 2022.

“In truth, I am a nerd,” confesses Villa discussing her studies. “I’m incredibly passionate about the topic. My aim was to understand what goes into products, decipher ingredient lists and distinguish fact from fiction, especially when it comes to ‘clean beauty’ claims.”

In her hometown, where Villa characterizes clean beauty as nascent, Villa had limited options when it came to product sampling. Plus, she points out, “Purchasing online from other countries is not possible from Argentina.” Whenever Villa traveled to Europe or the United States, she stocked up on goods from clean beauty brands.

“Over time, I curated a small selection of my top favorite skincare brands, becoming well-versed in everything about them,” she says. “It was truly a passion—or obsession. Then one day, my husband [Renzo Bordoni] said, ‘Why don’t you open a boutique?’”

A beauty enterprise wasn’t actually far afield for Bordoni, whose family has owned a perfume and cosmetics supplier for around 40 years. Once the idea of opening a beauty boutique was planted, Bordoni signed on as Villa’s partner for it. Knowing that her husband would inject additional business knowledge into the store, Villa set about manifesting it.

She spells out that her vision for Wairua Beauty is for it to be a place where shoppers can feel “empowered.” She describes the boutique as “a sacred space where people can learn, relax, and feel like their best selves.”

“Miami has numerous beauty services, but relatively few beauty retailers.”

The proposition isn’t without obstacles. “Miami, being a rapidly growing city, lacks big clean beauty players,” says Villa. “This presented a promising opportunity for me, but it also posed a challenge as it involved introducing a new concept. Unlike New York or Los Angeles, Miami has numerous beauty services, but relatively few beauty retailers.”

Operating in a residential area and serving a local clientele has allowed Villa to connect with customers on an individual basis. “Since we see our customers regularly, we keep track of their needs, goals, purchased items and services they’ve received,” she says. “Every detail they share is noted, allowing us to tailor each experience to their preferences. This personalized approach helps us build a foundation of trust so we can recommend exactly what they need when the time is right.”

Villa is at Wairua Beauty every day informing customers about products. At the moment, bestsellers include skincare products from Lendava, De La Hart, Josh Rosebrook, Naturopathica and Wonder Valley. The self-funded store earns 50% of its revenue from services and the remainder from product sales.

Wairua Beauty’s brick-and-mortar location is responsible for 70% of the product sales, and the rest come from its e-commerce website. For the virtual customer base, Wairua Beauty creates Instagram posts that dive into topics such as decoding ingredients and formulas. Villa says, “I’m a staunch advocate for education, empowering consumers to establish their own standards for making informed purchases.”

Wairua Beauty doesn’t expect to stick to a single store for long. “We want to continue growing the clientele of the store,” say Villa. “Once we see that the store begins to operate independently, we plan to open a second location.”

Ideally, a second location would open by the end of this year. Villa envisions it to be more retail-focused than Wairua Beauty’s current location and offer fewer services. It will also be in a more commercial area, though Villa says, “Our primary focus remains on growing within local communities, not in touristy areas, because one of our standout values is providing highly personalized attention.”

While Wairua Beauty’s Sunset Harbour location took longer to open than Villa had anticipated due to permitting delays, she foresees a smoother road ahead. She signed the lease for its space in September 2022, and it ultimately opened in August 2023. “The lack of easily accessible information on requirements, procedures and steps made the first store opening challenging,” says Villa. “After going through the construction process for this store and learning extensively, I believe the second location will progress much faster.”

Looking to the future of clean beauty, Villa prognosticates that the term will eventually fade away as consumers come to demand “better ingredients and practices from beauty companies” as a matter of course. However, she predicts an enduring discrepancy between what customers are seeking and what some companies are willing to provide. Referring to larger entrenched brands, Villa says, “It’s likely they’ll continue to prioritize cost-cutting measures to maintain their substantial profit margins. Therefore, super-niche boutiques like Wairua will persist as high-standard curation destinations.”