Our Story

Our Vision

Through the abundant gifts of Mother Earth we create and offer body care products that excite the senses, optimize health, and radiate natural beauty.

Our Mission

To operate with deep consideration and reverence for our team, partners, the natural world, and the global community that we serve. We source only the highest quality ingredients to create products from the gifts of Mother Earth with the intention to heal, and spread joy. The foundation of our mission is to leave everyone and everything more beautiful, happier, and infinitely healthier.

Our Story

In Swahili, Kuumba means a special type of creativity, “to make things more beautiful to benefit the community.” 
Kuumba Made was founded in 1980 by Denise “Kuumba” Piazza, a spirited, loving herbalist. She started the company with her handmade coconut oil infused with rose petals, calendula, and lavender flowers from her garden and a small collection of precious natural fragrance oils. Over four decades, with tireless dedication and pure intention, the company grew into a nationally recognized brand.

Today we are a small, innovative, and progressive company located amidst the beautiful Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona. Kuumba and our team of trained herbalists are passionate about researching and formulating handcrafted synergistic formulas to support the wellbeing and joy of our customers.

With time-honored wisdom and the intention to heal, we carefully source the purest ingredients to create gentle, effective products that soothe the mind and body and delight the senses. Our signature botanical infusions are made by hand in small batches with the finest organic and wildcrafted flowers, plants, and resins. This thorough, artful process best delivers the full benefits and vibrant scents of our most cherished herbal allies.
We measure our success by the support and joy our customers receive from our products and the trust we’ve gained over our 40 years of business.

Meet the Founder & President

For as long as she can remember, Denise Kuumba Piazza has been working and playing in the garden. Her first memories are rooted deep with her Sicilian grandparents where she spent hours captivated, growing vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fruits. This is where her love of nature began.
At a young age, her adventurous spirit took her to many distant shores on her 36′ outrigger canoe. She met many interesting people and developed a taste for the exotic and unusual. When her friends from the Caribbean taught her to make her own coconut oil, she fell in love with the process and knew it was something she would always do. Her appreciation of gardening and her desire to make her own body oil combined beautifully when she infused rose, lavender, and calendula with coconut to create the beginnings of Kuumba Made.
Kuumba’s greatest joy is to hear someone say they benefited from her creation. Her goal is to make the world a more beautiful place by creating natural skin care products that soothe, heal, and excite the senses.