In Paris, where fragrance talk can quickly turn theoretical, the Loto del Sur founder Johana Sanint brought the conversation back to the body, to memory, to the specific heat of a place. At the Maison de l’Amérique Latine, she joined Mexican journalist Luz María Zetina for an evening that felt less like a panel and more like an intimate decoding of how a brand becomes a language.
This was Paris, yes, but in a house dedicated to Latin America’s cultural richness, Colombia did not arrive as an “inspiration.” It arrived as a point of view. Sanint spoke to Puig colleagues in the room, with teams dialling in from global offices, about building Loto del Sur more than 25 years ago, and about the discipline required to honor biodiversity, rituals, and stories without sanding them into something export ready.
Loto del Sur founder Johana Sanint, the art of translating Latin America
There is a temptation, especially in European rooms, to treat Latin America as a mood board. Sanint resisted that politely, firmly. The story behind Loto del Sur, she reminded the audience, begins with Colombia’s extraordinary biodiversity, not as an aesthetic, but as a responsibility. You could hear it in the way she spoke about plants and practices, not as ingredients and “notes,” but as living archives.
What makes Loto del Sur compelling is not simply that it “celebrates” the region. It insists on specificity. The brand’s purpose has remained steady, to bring the richness of Latin America to new audiences without flattening the very thing that makes it singular. For readers who track the business of beauty as closely as the scent itself, it is a case study worth lingering on, and a natural fit alongside our coverage in Beauty and Fragrances.
Sensitivity is not softness, it is a strategy
The conversation circled, again and again, back to a word many founders avoid because it sounds fragile. Sensitivity. Sanint framed it as a working method, a way of paying attention to people, to supply chains, to the emotional truth of a product. Creativity, too, was presented not as a lightning bolt, but as daily practice. Perseverance came last, the least glamorous of the trio, and the one that quietly decides whether a brand survives its own ambitions.
Inside Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Paris listens differently
The setting mattered. The Maison de l’Amérique Latine has a particular hush, the kind that encourages nuance, and it made room for the parts of the story that are usually edited out. The challenges of building a company, the lessons learned the hard way, the tension between growth and fidelity to purpose. It was the kind of cultural conversation Paris does well when it resists spectacle and leans into detail.
Leading as a woman, a mother, an entrepreneur
When Sanint spoke about leadership, she did not polish it into inspiration. She talked about the lived experience of carrying a brand while also carrying a life. The labour is real. So is the joy. In an industry that still rewards founders who perform certainty, her candour felt quietly radical, and unusually useful.
Why Loto del Sur is resonating globally now
The renewed international appetite for provenance can easily slip into tourism. Loto del Sur’s strength is that it refuses the costume version of heritage. The brand’s story travels because it is anchored. That is the paradox. The more rooted it is in Latin America’s rituals and biodiversity, the more legible it becomes elsewhere.
If you are interested in how identity, craft, and commerce meet, this belongs in the same conversation as the founders and houses we cover in Luxury and Business. And if you want the corporate context behind the evening, Puig has been increasingly visible about the brands it supports and the cultures they represent.
A founder’s purpose, kept intact
What stayed with me was how often Sanint returned to purpose, not as a slogan, but as a compass. The Loto del Sur founder did not sell a dream of effortless expansion. She described a brand that keeps choosing the harder route, the one that asks, each time, what it owes to the stories it carries.
Image Credits: Puig.