Exploring Life & Business with Cynthia Gitonga of GITONGA Beauty

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Gitonga.

Cynthia, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started PUSH Sea Moss during the pandemic. And honestly, it started as something completely different!

I originally wanted to put hot Black and dark-skinned Black girls on shirts because I rarely ever saw sexy Black girls on those oversized skater shirts. LOL! I printed a few images of myself, put them on a Squarespace website, and listed them for about $80–$100. And they actually sold! I was shocked. I was like, “Wait… people are really buying this?!”

That little T-shirt idea lasted about as long as it took me to build the website, LOL. But then my brother, who lives in Jamaica and dives for sea moss, approached me about selling it. At the time, the pandemic was looking really scary, and I started thinking more seriously about health and wellness.

Once I reintroduced sea moss into my routine, I remembered just how POWERFUL it was—and still is. I fell in love with what it was doing for my gut and my skin. Everywhere I went, people were complimenting my skin and asking me what I was doing differently. I also hadn’t gotten COVID while so many people around me had, and whether that was connected or not, I just felt GOOD. My quality of life genuinely lifted.

From there, I started selling sea moss at farmers markets, and that opened up an entirely different door for me. I started diving deeper into my family land in Jamaica and discovered how many incredible herbs were already growing on my inherited land. I realized I didn’t just want to understand my legacy—I wanted to understand what generational wealth could actually look like for me and my family.

That’s when I decided to take a few acres of the land and start growing ingredients for my own skincare.

My brother was already diving for sea moss, which is amazing to consume, but I started realizing how incredible it can be topically, too—especially for skin concerns like eczema, rosacea, and psoriasis. I gave a few samples to some of my model friends, and they literally started begging me for more! That was when I knew I had something.

Once I realized we had a solid skincare mask, I thought, “Okay, but what are my customers supposed to put on after the mask?” So naturally, we needed a moisturizer.

And then the gay boys started talking about skincare steps, and I was like, “Okayyy, let me get some skincare steps in here!” 😂 But honestly, I’m such a simple girl. I wanted everything to stay as natural and uncomplicated as possible.

So I started growing castor oil, coconut, and moringa on my ancestral land. And that’s really how PUSH Sea Moss evolved into a much bigger umbrella: GITONGA Beauty.

Today, GITONGA Beauty encompasses all of our “Eat It. Drink It. Wear It.” products. What started as a T-shirt idea during a pandemic turned into a journey of reconnecting with my land, my family, my culture, and ultimately creating a business rooted in wellness, beauty, and generational wealth.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Lol, hell naw!! What? Hell no! 😂

The road has definitely NOT been smooth. I think the product itself came to me pretty easily because moisturizing, eating clean, and taking care of myself were already part of my life’s ritual. My entire brand is really just my lifestyle turned into a business. I naturally love Jamaica, I love sea moss, I love our GITONGA Ritual Oils, and I love sharing things that make me feel good.

The business side? Baby, that’s where the Lord started sending the monitoring spirits. 😂

I’ve dealt with hateful friends, even more hateful investors or people who said they wanted to invest, people trying to take advantage of me, customers being stolen at farmers markets, and even having my page hacked on some of our biggest sales days. You name it!

One situation really stayed with me. A Black man working for a white woman who wanted to invest in me actually told me not to worry about paperwork or the legal details and basically suggested that, as a Black girl, I should just be happy that they were even looking my way. I remember thinking…sigh.

And honestly, sometimes the funniest part is watching people with gut issues, low libido, acne, and all kinds of things my products can actually help with spend more energy hating than trying the damn product! Like, baby, you could literally be glowing right now, having long sex with your favorite partner, and A1 bowel movements literally all in one week! LOL. if I’m lying I’m flying and my feet are on the ground suga! 😂😂

But those have been some of the constant struggles: protecting the brand, protecting myself, figuring out who genuinely wants to see me win, and learning when to say no.

I’m a firm believer that the Lord will test you with certain situations because they’re meant to grow you. But I also believe He gives you the tools to overcome them. You just have to clear out the noise, trust yourself, and stop apologizing for taking up space.

And whew, am I still learning that!

Not everybody can come with you. Sometimes the biggest part of building something is realizing that everyone who started with you isn’t necessarily meant to finish the journey with you.

So no, it hasn’t been smooth. 😂 But it has been necessary. And honestly, I wouldn’t trade the lessons.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about GITONGA Beauty?
GITONGA Beauty is what I call farmed beauty. We take plants from the sea and plants from my ancestral farm in Jamaica and turn them into products for beauty, wellness, and gut health.

Our journey started with PUSH Sea Moss, but as the house grew, I realized we were building something much bigger than sea moss. So we brought everything under one umbrella: GITONGA Beauty.

Our philosophy has always been simple: “Eat It. Drink It. Wear It.” We believe wellness doesn’t have to live in just one category. What you put in your body, what you drink, and what you put on your skin can all be part of the same ritual.

We work with ingredients like wildcrafted sea moss, castor oil, moringa, and coconut, many of which are connected directly to my family’s ancestral land in Jamaica. Our sea moss is 100% wildcrafted—not pool-grown—and we have our own facilities in Jamaica. That connection to the land and the source is extremely important to us.

We also specialize in small-batch production. I’m very intentional about that because I don’t want to sacrifice the integrity of the ingredients just to make more product. There is something special about knowing where something came from, who touched it, how it was processed, and why you’re putting it on or in your body.

And that brings me to what I’m probably most proud of about GITONGA Beauty.

Our products are naturally sourced through the people and communities connected to the land. We’re not just extracting ingredients from Jamaica and putting them into pretty packaging. We’re trying to create a system where the people who have carried these traditions for generations can actually benefit from them.

Our GITONGA Ritual Oils are a huge part of that. I love knowing that some of the older women who hand-process our oils are able to earn meaningful income from their knowledge and their craft. And honestly, sitting with these women and hearing their stories about how things were done in the past is priceless to me. There is so much wisdom there. Those conversations are part of the product, too.

We recently launched our GITONGA Ritual Castor Oil, and I’m especially excited about it because castor oil has so many uses beyond skincare. We’re interested in bringing people back to these incredibly versatile, traditional ingredients in their rawest, most intentional forms.

What sets GITONGA Beauty apart is that we are not trying to recreate something that already exists somewhere else. The land is the inspiration. The ingredients are the story. The people are part of the process. And the ritual is the brand.

We sit at a luxury price point, but for me, luxury isn’t just a fancy bottle. Luxury is knowing exactly where your ingredients come from. Luxury is small-batch production. Luxury is craftsmanship. Luxury is being able to trace something back to the land and the hands that made it.

I’m proud that GITONGA Beauty allows me to take something that has always existed in Jamaica—our plants, our sea, our traditional knowledge—and present it to the world in a way that feels modern, beautiful, and elevated without losing its soul.

Ultimately, I want people to know that GITONGA Beauty is more than skincare and wellness. It’s a relationship with the land. It’s a relationship with our ancestors. It’s a relationship with ourselves.

And yes, you can Eat It. Drink It. Wear It. LOL!

What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is family. Creating something that I can leave for the next generation—with history attached to it. That, to me, is legacy.

I want the next generation to know where they come from. I think so many of us, especially people of African and Black American descent, have been taught—sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally—to hide or disconnect from our traditions. And when we stop passing those traditions down, we lose pieces of ourselves.

We forget what our grandmother used to say. We forget how our grandfather used to do things. We forget which plants they used, how they cared for their families, how they worked the land, how they healed, how they celebrated, and why certain things mattered.

And when we forget, somebody else can come along and put their own value on something that was always sacred to us.

That is a huge part of why ancestral land matters so much to me. It’s not just about owning land. It’s about remembering. It gives you a physical place to connect with the stories, the people, and the traditions that came before you.

For me, reconnecting with ancestral land has also helped close a spiritual gap. There is something powerful about knowing that the same soil your ancestors walked on is still there—and that you can plant something in it, grow something from it, and build something for the people who come after you.

I want GITONGA to be part of that story. I want to create generational wealth, yes, but I also want to create GENERATIONAL KNOWLEDGE. Because what good is leaving something behind if the next generation doesn’t understand what it means?

To me, a complete legacy isn’t just money or property. It’s knowing who you are, knowing where you come from, understanding the wisdom that was passed down to you, and having enough pride to pass it forward.

That matters most to me.

Tune into our PUSH Sea Moss podcast on all your podcasting platforms to follow the journey and to discuss healthy easy ways to live a fuller life.

Pricing:

• $119.00 CASTOR RITUAL OIL
• $128.00 COCONUT RITUAL OIL
• 132.00 MORINGA RITUAL OIL
• $25-$40 SEA MOSS GEL (8oz,12oz, 16oz)
• $48.00 PUSH Sea Moss Water

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pushseamoss.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/pushseamoss?igshid=ODBkMDk1MTU=
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pushseamoss3030
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@pushseamoss

Image Credits
GITONGA Beauty. Four Seasons Maldives Photography( I forgot the photographer’s name, but he is the main/only photographer so please include the Maldives, it looks great for him. The shoot was a big turnout for the staff.