Mariale Marrero is a Venezuelan-born, LA-based influencer who recently launched her much-anticipated collaboration with Too Faced Cosmetics. Marrero simultaneously released a self-produced documentary called Secrets, which details the direct discrimination she encountered with one particular business in the United States influencer industry.
The bilingual YouTuber has amassed over 13 million subscribers on her channel Mariale. She also runs an English-language channel called Mar, which has over 2 million subscribers, and a third channel documenting her personal life, Mariale SinPatuque, with nearly 4 million subscribers. Even though she isn’t a professional makeup artist, Marrero is extremely knowledgeable about the world of beauty and MUA’s.
Amor Caliente is the YouTuber’s first experience producing a makeup product alongside a major cosmetics company. The 12-color palette was designed with fiery shades of red, brown, and orange to intentionally reflect Marrero’s fierce personality and style. The palette’s name, Amor Caliente, also connects to Marrero’s heritage as a Latina and immigrant woman whose love and passion is always burning hot!
“The Too Faced team are absolute pros and guided me through every step of the way,” Marrero shared when asked about her experience with the collab. “I learned a lot about how all the quadrants of the palette should be cohesive and the different formulas and textures of each shade need to work together.”
Amor Caliente includes shades that work into an everyday look, but can also create eye-catching appearances with pops of color. Nonetheless, like everything else in the world, the collaboration was affected by the coronavirus. A launch party for the palette was not organized for its official public release on Sept. 13th. In her documentary Secrets, viewers watch Marrero receive the news and explain how it would have been irresponsible if she and the Too Faced team planned an event amid a pandemic.
“The concept of doing something so far in advance is actually quite challenging,” Marrero added. “We started working on this almost 2 years ago, and it’s difficult to know if another palette would launch before mine and be similar,” or that a worldwide pandemic would make social distancing the norm.
Another major obstacle Marrero overcame was the marginalization she faced within the very industry she loves. Her hour-long documentary presents, not only her journey into the U.S. as a Venezuelan immigrant, but her unfortunate experience with Tribe Dynamics.
Tribe Dynamics is essentially a platform where brands and companies pay to access a database of digital creators and influencers in order to track their media value. Marrero’s manager, Kim, said it’s the optics on the return of an investment made with the creator. If you’re an influencer who isn’t listed within the marketing platform, then you’ll potentially miss out on major brand deals and partnerships.
Marrero was abruptly removed from the system for U.S. based partnerships because the majority of her Hispanic audience is outside of the country. The conflicting issue here is the international creator still has a large American following, bigger than a number of other influencers on the platform.
“I am in their system under their Mexico panel, which is hugely frustrating,” Marrero expressed. “I was working with so many large U.S. brands before and any brand will tell you they are not allowed to spend U.S. marketing budgets on a creator exclusively labeled for a different country.”
Marrero decided to produce a documentary calling out Tribe Dynamics and holding the company accountable for the sake of future Hispanic and Latin influencers. Luckily for the YouTuber and her team, Too Faced didn’t shy away from pursuing a partnership with Marrero.
“Too Faced still values the work that I do and values my audience—regardless of their country of origin. The distribution was impacted by COVID and some of the retailer availability, but the goal was always to make the palette available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K. and Colombia, which are a few of the biggest markets my audience reaches.”
Marrero’s film covers the partnership with Too Faced Cosmetics, including the friendship she built with co-founder Jerrod Blandino. We learn Too Faced has been one of Marrero’s dream brands to collaborate with because of their inclusivity and “good vibes.” Secrets documents the influencer’s excitement and involvement in the palette’s creation, and portrays her side of the frustrating experience with Tribe Dynamics.
While the pandemic continues, Marrero is just enjoying all of the content and kind words people have for Amor Caliente. Thinking about the “surreal” accomplishment often brings the international influencer to tears. Marrero does have some advice for other Latin influencers and MUA’s.
“Support each other. Support other Latin creators and support the brands that celebrate us. There will always be challenges, and it will be hard sometimes, but stay the course and never give up!”
