The Beauty of Being Different

In her memoir, Rooting For Me, CEO and creator Nina Dizon proves how one can go against the grain—and win.
Reading Time: 7 minutes

In many ways, Nina Ellaine Dizon doesn’t fit the proverbial mold. Known in the beauty world as the CEO and founder of well-loved local brands Colourette Cosmetics and Fresh Formula, this 30-year-old entrepreneur, content creator, body positivity influencer, advocate for change, and empowered single mom has almost always done things differently, both by chance and by choice. 

Born from a middle-class family in Pampanga, Dizon dropped out of college to support herself and her family financially. Entrepreneurial since she was a kid, she would dabble in many businesses including reselling ukay-ukay (secondhand) clothes before finding herself in the world of beauty products. Today, she’s at the helm of Niv Della Beauty Innovations, her very own D2C (direct-to-consumer) company that houses her makeup and skincare brands, and Every Body, a groundbreaking, inclusive swimwear line catering to plus-size women like herself. Just this June, Dizon’s Colourette became the first local indie beauty brand to achieve global funding after securing a whopping US$2 million in investments. 

A typical rags-to-riches tale? Not quite. Because this story’s main character is anything but your average heroine. In her new book Rooting For Me: Breaking Boundaries as a (Business)Woman, which she co-authored with her best friend and PR consultant Sab Esguerra—all while undergoing massive upheavals in her personal life—Dizon writes candidly about her less-than-perfect journey as a businesswoman and as a woman. A loud, proud, and strong voice not just in the business space but also on social media, Dizon is redefining what it means to be a successful female in our society today. 

STRONG GIRL, TOUGH WORLD. Against all odds, Nina Dizon always managed to win. Her latest win is a memoir she’s co-authored with her best friend.

To be clear, Dizon didn’t exactly set out to be an outlier, whether in business or in life.

“I began a beauty business not because I had some grand plan but because I needed to support myself and my family,” she writes in the book, where she goes into detail about how she literally started with scraps—soap scraps, to be exact—to make ends meet.

During a roundtable interview with the press for the book’s launch, Dizon recalls how some people couldn’t believe that she, barely 20, was already running her own business. “I’d go into meetings and they’d ask me, ‘Where are your parents?’”

“I couldn’t blame them, I was so young [back then],” she says. “No bank would give me a loan. The only people I could borrow from were my family. Just P2,500—that’s the ceiling.”

Early on, she had to take matters into her own hands, something that would turn out to be a recurring theme in her life. This makes the book’s title, Rooting for Me, so beautifully apt. When nobody else believed in me, I had to believe in myself,” says Dizon. ”I had to root for myself.”

It wasn’t easy, too, given that she had to break down many walls and pave new paths to get to where she is now. In celebration of her inspiring journey, we chronicle the many ways “Miss Nina,” as her online followers fondly call her, forged her way forward, defying conventions as she created her own brand of success.

MISS NINA. Known to her followers as ‘Miss Nina,’ the beauty CEO has always been an inspiration to her fans for her brave heart and outspoken personality.

Society says: You need a degree to be successful.
Miss Nina says: Education matters, but hard work can be a great equalizer.

Since the beginning, Dizon has always been open about being a college dropout. But that doesn’t mean it’s a path that she recommends aspiring young entrepreneurs take. “People would often label me an inspiration… what they couldn’t see was that I wasn’t proud of the dropout label,” she writes in an Instagram post. 

To her credit, she had always been a hard worker—and a resourceful one at that. “Hard work was my most valuable asset,” she reveals of her early years, a fact that remains true until now. The first three chapters of her book hold much evidence of this, showing a young Nina Dizon beating the odds even sans a degree.

Despite her business success, she never forgot about her goal to finish college. In October 2023, she finally graduated from the Lyceum of the Philippines University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, majoring in Marketing Management.

That said, she’s keen to remind everyone that lacking a diploma shouldn’t “disqualify you from chasing your dreams,” emphasizing that though your path may be different, “it can be just as rewarding.”

Society says: You have to look a certain way.
Miss Nina says: I’m my own kind of beautiful.

As the face of her brands, most especially Colourette, Dizon is no stranger to being in the public eye, particularly on social media where she has managed to build a strong online community she lovingly calls the Loucarettes. She’s also one of the first Filipino entrepreneurs to make it big in the TikTok space, where she now boasts almost two million followers.

But comfortable as she may seem on camera, Dizon admits she’s not immune to feelings of insecurity, something she’s battled with since childhood. “I struggled with persistent insecurities about my weight, complexion, and overall physical appearance,” she writes. 

Truth be told, she’s braving dangerous ground as a social media personality, where she’s an easy target of mean comments and unwarranted criticism. Case in point: Some people started calling her ‘balyena’ (orca whale) when she wore a swimsuit despite her weight gain. This prompted her to create Every Body, a local swimwear line offering sizes from 2XS to 5XL.

Admittedly, she wasn’t always such an ‘empowering’ entrepreneur. At the beginning of her beauty journey, she sold whitening soaps and slimming products. “A few years down the line I realized I no longer wanted to bank on people’s insecurities to make money,” she writes. She then became intentional in creating brands that promoted self-love, empowering women to embrace their unique definition of beauty as she does so herself. 

COMMUNITY-CENTERED. At the end of the day, Nina Dizon’s North Star is always to create for the community. She hopes her story can inspire others to strive for better and achieve what they deserve.

Society says: Good girls should sit still
Miss Nina says: You have a voice—use it.

Of the many things Dizon is, keeping mum on issues she cares about sure isn’t one of them. This outspokenness has landed her in hot water more than once, most notably in 2021 when she was wrongfully accused of being a conspirator in a ‘vaccine slot for sale’ scam despite being the one to expose the modus online. Then in 2022, she proudly campaigned for the Leni Robredo-Kiko Pangilinan tandem during the presidential elections, a political stand that made her the center of much controversial talk.

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Not surprisingly, her openness, especially regarding issues outside the beauty arena, has attracted her legions of admirers… and haters. She talks about this in a chapter cheekily titled “Professional Pero Gaga (Professional But Crazy).” Bashers would say mean things to her while also dragging her business down. But she didn’t let any of these silence her. If anything, it only made her feel strongly about her responsibility to be “authentic” while also bringing awareness to relevant issues.

Speaking about her critics, she tells the press at her book launch, “I think I’m learning to tune the noise out, [knowing that] I really can’t please everyone.” This is her outlook as she makes her debut as an author, sharing her journey in her signature no-filter way. 

Dizon adds that she feels validated whenever one of her followers reaches out to say that they did something brave because of what Dizon said or shared. “Like, ‘Miss Nina, because you shared your journey, finally, I left my abusive relationship,’” she says, “I get that a lot, around five times a day. That, for me, is enough for me to continue what I’m doing.”

Society says: Every woman should strive for a conventional family.
Miss Nina says: There’s no shame in choosing yourself.

When asked about the challenges that Dizon encountered while writing Rooting For Me during the past year, she doesn’t shy away from talking about her personal struggles, particularly on the family front. “We were writing the book while we were doing the recently announced fundraise of Colourette… and [all while I was] undergoing a personal transition in my life,” she says.

In late 2023, Dizon announced her separation from her husband. As she transitioned into her new life as a single mother for her two kids, she says she had to uproot her children from the province and move to Manila. She did this while continuously grinding hard to secure Colourette’s investments and working on the book. “So three major events happened in 2023 [to me], as one of the strongest soldiers of God,” she jokes. “This year, I told myself, I want to be ‘baby girl’ instead.” 

A self-confessed all-or-nothing gal when it comes to love, Dizon admits it wasn’t an easy decision. It took a lot for her to choose herself, finally. ‘I woke up one day and asked myself, “What if there’s more to life than this? What if I can be happier?’” 

“Challenging the status quo was the best thing I did for myself,” she writes.

Society says: You can’t do this or that.
Miss Nina says: Watch me.

Call it impressive or petty, but Dizon is never one to back down from a challenge—whether it’s a TikTok hater telling her she can’t sell a bikini (she can, many times over) or an online troll saying she has nothing but “delusions of grandeur” (she’s a ‘delulu’ who’s turned many of dreams into reality). Perhaps this is precisely why she is the unstoppable force that she is now.

Becoming a book author was once a pipe dream, too. Today, Rooting For Me is available in major bookstores and all major e-commerce platforms. “We want to serve as an inspiration,” Dizon says of her ultimate purpose behind this project. “What I want my readers to get out of this is… If I could do [all these things], they could do better than me.”

Rooting For Me is published by Summit Books. For more information, visit fb.com/summit.books  

Collage by Dannah Valdezco. Light scrap magazine paper and pink scrap magazine paper by © Taisiya Kozorez. Gold star cutout by © tatyanakorenyugina. Glitter gold star by © Berry art via canva.com

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