Mexican beauty brand SARELLY is making its first major U.S. retail move with a point of view that is culturally specific, proudly maximalist, and aimed at an audience too often treated as an afterthought in the beauty aisle: Latinas.
The company, founded in Mexico City by creator Anna Sarelly and beauty executive Rémi Martini, has raised $3 million to support its next phase of growth in the United States. In an interview with this reporter, Martini, who moved to the U.S. to lead the expansion, explained that "the funding will help expand its TikTok Shop operations, build a local team, and grow its national retail footprint, without losing our Mexican DNA." Current investors Wollef, Sandbox Studios, and Semilla Ventures increased their participation, while Silas Capital, Siddhi Capital, and Pentland Ventures joined the round.
On Sept. 10, SARELLY will enter more than 600 Target stores nationwide and Target.com through the retailer's new Target Beauty Studio concept, which is set to launch with 90 emerging, prestige and global brands. Target has identified SARELLY as one of its global beauty offerings.
For Martini, the move is not about adapting a Mexican brand for U.S. shelves. It is about taking a brand built from Latina beauty rituals and cultural references to the market where many of those consumers already live and shop.
"We are not creating a Mexican brand for Mexico," Martini explained. "We are building the first global beauty brand out of Mexico."
That distinction is central to SARELLY's pitch. Martini, who previously worked in global beauty groups including LVMH, L'Oréal and Coty before moving to Mexico, said he saw a gap in a market where large companies frequently market to Latinas without creating products from a Latina perspective.
"There are many brands that adapt to Latinas," he said. "But there was no brand created from Latina beauty."
The company's hero product, Cow Lashes, illustrates the strategy. The waterproof mascara was created for straight, downward-growing lashes, a common need among many Latina consumers, and takes its unusual name from the Mexican expression "pestañas de vaca," a reference used by grandmothers to describe long, straight lashes. Martini said the mascara is now the brand's top seller across Sephora, Costco and TikTok Shop in Mexico.
The product also points to the opportunity and limitations of marketing under the broad "Latina" label. SARELLY's formulas are designed with specific beauty concerns in mind, but the brand does not see them as exclusive. Martini said the mascara has also found traction with Asian consumers, another group that often shares the need for formulas that hold a curl on straight lashes.
"For us, it is about showing the world that our culture can be sexy not only for Latinos," he said.
Target emerged as the right partner after SARELLY tested the U.S. market through TikTok Shop and Amazon last year. The company analyzed its first 25,000 U.S. customers and found that 63% also shopped at Target, compared with 33% at Ulta and 19% at Sephora, Martini said.
The retailer's Beauty Studio initiative gave the company a path into prestige beauty without abandoning the accessibility that is crucial to reaching Latino shoppers beyond major coastal markets. SARELLY will launch 34 products at Target, including Cow Lashes and Horse Lashes mascara, waterproof-makeup remover Lavadero, glitter products, La Mil Sombras eye palettes inspired by lucha libre, and lip products from its Telenovelas collection, which celebrates the larger-than-life villain archetypes of classic Spanish-language dramas.
The cultural storytelling does not end at packaging. SARELLY's short-form social media telenovela, Drama en la Chamba, has generated more than 40 million organic views across its first two seasons. Instead of treating content like conventional advertising, Martini said the company turns its products into part of an entertainment world built around workplace drama, humor and Mexican references.
The second season's final episode, due Sept. 2, will announce the Target launch. A third season, filmed inside Target and in Spanish, is expected to debut in early November.
For Martini, that is the clearest sign that the brand's Mexican identity is not being diluted for U.S. expansion. It is becoming the story.
"Target not only values it, they embrace it," he said. "Our marketing is in Spanish. We create characters. We are maximalist in the way we wear makeup and in the way we communicate."
