Kecia Littman is the founder of Lei Wai Beauty, a Native Hawaiian makeup artist, licensed esthetician, global artist, and educator with 25 years of experience in the beauty industry. Her work has spanned editorial, television, education, and fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan, and Paris. Today, she brings that artistry and experience to Lei Wai, creating beauty rooted in Hawaiʻi, guided by generations, and designed to help us feel more connected to ourselves.
Lei Wai is a modern beauty brand rooted in Hawaiʻi and guided by generations. Created from more than two decades of professional artistry, Lei Wai brings together high - performance beauty, island botanicals, and intentional rituals designed to make beauty feel effortless, expressive and deeply personal.
For Kecia, beauty has never been only about how we look. It is about how we feel, how we care for ourselves, and the small moments that bring us back to who we are.
But Lei Wai began with something much more personal.
My mother was my first introduction to beauty. A cosmetologist with an incredible eye for hair, fashion, and design, her creativity inspired me long before beauty became my career.
When I became interested in makeup, finding shades for my medium skin tone wasn’t easy. She helped me find products at MAC cosmetics that actually matched me, bought me my first makeup book by Kevyn Aucoin, and encouraged me to explore makeup as an art.
But her greatest lesson had nothing to do with makeup. Growing up, I didn’t always feel comfortable with my strong features. She would tell me, “You’re going to grow into your features one day.”
I never forgot those words.
Today, I understand exactly what she meant. Beauty isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about growing into who you are, embracing what makes you different, and learning to love yourself first.
That belief lives at the heart of Lei Wai: beauty begins with you.
Lei is an adornment; beautiful, sentimental, and a symbol of connection to the people we love. For me, Lei honors my mother, whose love, creativity, and belief in me shaped the woman and artist I became.
Wai means water; the source that sustains us, feeds generations, and represents abundance. Wai honors my great-great grandmother Wailua and the ancestors who came before me.
Together, Lei Wai carries my lineage forward. It is a connection between generations, between those who came before us, who we are today, and what we pass on to those who come after us.
Aloha Spirit is more than a word. It is a way of living; with respect, generosity, kindness, and care for one another and the natural world that sustains us.
Aloha By Nature is how Lei Wai carries that spirit forward. It guides how we create, how we connect, and how we treat the people and places around us. From thoughtful formulation and responsible choices to the relationships we build with our customers, artists, partners, and community, we believe beauty should leave something good behind.
For Lei Wai, Aloha isn’t something we simply talk about. It’s something we practice.
Every Lei Wai product is created with intention, bringing together high-performance beauty, thoughtful ingredients, and the perspective of 25 years of professional artistry.
We believe beauty should feel as good as it looks. From texture and color to the way a product performs and becomes part of your daily ritual, every detail is considered with purpose.
Less excess. More intention. Beauty designed to work with you.
In a world that asks us to keep moving, beauty can be a moment to return to ourselves.
A pause. A ritual. A few intentional moments to reconnect with how we feel and remember what is already within us.
You don’t need to become someone else to be beautiful. Beauty begins with you.
