Rita's Story

My obsession with skincare began during my twenty plus years serving in the United States Navy. Before officially retiring as a Senior Chief Petty Officer on May 2020, I would often deploy on missions between six to nine months at a time in hot climates which would be taxing on my skin. The sea salt combined with the humidity would usually leave my skin itchy and flaky. The Aloe Vera and Shea butter ‘natural’ products I used during my deployments worked temporarily but none prevented me from scratching my flaky skin in my rack. What I didn’t know at the time was that the products contained a lot of alcohol and mineral oils which didn’t help with keeping my skin moisturized.

After my deployment in 2011, and months of research, I developed a moisturizer using coconut milk which was proven to be more nourishing and healing to the skin than   the previous water and alcohol based products.

What started out initially as my own creation of lotions and soaps to last me during my deployments, my shipmates had other ideas and I would often run out of products within the first few weeks. This is when the idea for starting a skincare business was born.

Why the name ‘Mwah Body’?

As a child, my parents would often take me to visit my grandma’s home in Georgia where I would often spend the entire summer with her.

After a long day playing in the scorching Georgia sun, my Grandma would give me a bath and rub some of her favorite floral scented lotions on my skin before tucking me into bed with a kiss on my forehead. ‘Maw-ahh.’

It took me years to get over the sudden passing of my Grandma in the summer of 2008. So after coming up with the idea for my skincare products, it only felt right to immortalize her kiss. "Mwah!".