Ceremonia

A scalp oil with a Spanish name, Aceite de Moska, was the entire product lineup with which Ceremonia got its start. The brand was launched in the midst of the pandemic by Babba Rivera, who grew up in Sweden, has a father who is a hairstylist from Chile, and previously worked on the team that launched Uber in Sweden. Today, the brand sells several dozen hair and scalp products and accessories; it is listed on Sephora as the first hair care brand founded by a Latina to be distributed nationally by the retailer; and, according to Dealroom, it has raised a $10 million funding round and is headquartered in New York.

Ceremonia positions itself as a clean hair care brand inspired by Latin American rituals, with formulas free of silicones, sulfates, parabens, and phthalates, containing approximately 95% naturally derived ingredients, certified by Leaping Bunny and PETA, a member of 1% for the Planet, and a Plastic Negative partner for packaging free of virgin plastic. The star ingredients are fruits and plants from Latin America: guava, papaya, pequi, babassu, yucca, acai, and agave.

The Ceremonia catalog is organized by category and by hair concern. For cleansing, there's the Guava Protect and Repair shampoo and conditioner, also sold as a duo for $49, plus a papaya scalp scrub for $39, which functions as an exfoliating shampoo for two or three washes per week. Treatments include the pre-wash scalp oil for $38, the Guava Repair mask for $39—for which the website cites a clinical test showing 60% fewer split ends and 25% less breakage—the Guava leave-in conditioner for $30, the brand's most award-winning product, and Guava Gloss Drops at $34. Clean styling includes a pequi gel at $32, a gel for unruly strands at $18, Guava Rescue spray with UV and heat protection up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit at $27, and a dry shampoo with arorut at $28, and accessories include a scalp massager for $18, a satin scrunchie for $15, and a microfiber towel for $32.

For first-time visitors, Ceremonia offers a hair questionnaire, a customizer called "Build Your Ritual" with a discount on the bundle, and three pre-made options: the Starter Ritual for $49 instead of $83, the best-selling routine for $119 instead of $146, and a complete kit with a towel for $129 instead of $193. Almost every product has a subscription price that's about 10 to 15% lower, shipping is free on orders over $65, and the store serves only the United States and Canada, with an interface in English and Spanish.

The marketing claims are numerous and deserve to be evaluated separately. The "About Us" page lists over 100 beauty awards, TV appearances, and features in over a thousand publications, and the logos of Forbes, Refinery29, Allure, InStyle, and Vogue appear on the homepage; In the case of Refinery29, there is a real-world test: an editor who replaced her entire routine with Ceremonia products for four months and wrote that the scalp scrub is the only must-have, while the leave-in conditioner and spray oil did not make it into her routine. The statement on the website claiming that the products leave no chemical residues in the soil or water is a sustainability claim that the site does not back up with any documentation.

Reviews on Thingtesting

The ratings on the site range from 4.8 to 5.0 for each product, which doesn't say much. More useful is Thingtesting, an independent consumer-review platform for brands, where Ceremonia has a 4.2 rating based on 97 reviews, and 82% of reviewers would recommend it to a friend. Praise focuses on the guava scent, the packaging, and the curl products—especially the scalp oil and the pequi curl activator; the criticisms are also consistent: the shampoo and conditioner are heavy and leave residue, the scent is too strong for some, the scalp scrub cleans too aggressively, and people with fine or straight hair report that their hair feels weighed down and lacks volume. A Trustpilot or BBB profile for the brand did not appear in the search.

In other words, independent reviews paint a picture of a narrower target audience than the one depicted in the ads: wavy, curly, or thick hair, damaged by dye and heat, belonging to someone who likes to smell like fruit. For fine hair, these same rich formulas become a drawback, and the price of $30 to $39 per product really adds up.

Contact with Ceremonia is made exclusively via a contact form, with a response promised within one or two business days; there is no phone number or mailing address listed on the contact page, which for a brand sold in brick-and-mortar stores is a choice, not an oversight. The shipping and return policies are published, and the FAQ page covers subscriptions, ingredients, and shipping.

A useful comparison is with a product recommended by ingredient databases themselves: SkinSort pits the Guava Leave-In Conditioner head-to-head against Marc Anthony Argan Oil, a drugstore product with ten ingredients in common, the same absence of silicones and sulfates, and a price that's nearly $19 lower. What the buyer pays extra for at Ceremonia is the guava scent, the packaging, the sustainability certifications, and the clinical tests cited on the mask and spray—and if these things matter to someone with curly, damaged hair, the $49 Starter Ritual is the cheapest way to find out.