THIS is a Poly Girl — Tongovua Marie Tangitau

Reclaiming Polynesian Traditions Through Vua Beauty

The Healing Practices That Was Always Ours

Across the Pacific, ways of restoring health have long lived far beyond textbooks and laboratories. It lived within families and in everyday life. In gardens, kitchens, and daily conversations, people passed down remedies through observation and trust — learning which leaves soothed a fever or which tonics restored strength.

For many Pacific Islanders, this was simply life. When someone was sick, medicine came from what the land provided and what elders understood. These customs were woven into daily living, sustained across households over time.

Today the global health and beauty industry is filled with products inspired by nature and ancestral wisdom known across the Pacific for centuries. Yet Pacific Islanders are rarely the ones telling those stories or founding the businesses behind them. Too often our stories appear in fragments, misunderstood or reshaped without the voices of the people they come from.

That is beginning to change.

A new generation of Pacific Islander founders are stepping forward — not to turn ancestral practices into a trend, but to ensure that if the world is going to benefit from these remedies, they are shared with care, context, and respect.

Marie Tangitau is one of those women.

Through her beauty brand, Vua Beauty, she is sharing a remedy from Polynesia while honoring where it comes from. Her journey isn’t about entering the industry. It’s about earning recognition and respect within it.

Reclaiming Her Name and Voice

For years, Tongovua Marie Tangitau avoided using her first name. It sounded different from what people were used to, and when you’re young, standing out that way can feel uncomfortable. So she simply went by Marie.

That experience is familiar to Polynesians growing up in the United States. Many of us have one name at home and another in public. What our families call us often holds history and meaning, while what they call us outside feels easier for others to pronounce.

Without a lot of role models or mentors who look like us or sound like us, it can seem simpler to adjust ourselves rather than ask others to learn.

Today, the name she once set aside sits at the center of the brand she built.

Vua Beauty.

Vua is what her family has always called her. It comes from Tongovua, the name she was given after her grandfather’s favorite sister. The word itself means blessing.

Calling her company Vua, became more than a branding decision. It was a way of saying something out loud that once felt easier to avoid in public. 

As Marie puts it,

“Sometimes part of becoming who you are means teaching the world how to say your name.”

It’s a lesson she learned early from one of the strongest influences in her life, her Aunt Susi. In Tonga, there is the concept of fanga fa’e — many mothers — and Aunt Susi was one of the women who raised her. She insisted the children speak Tongan.

For Polynesian families raising children in the United States, language is often the first part of culture that begins to change. English dominates and over time, native tongues can slowly fade.

At the time, Marie resisted. Speaking Tongan felt unnecessary when English was everywhere else. But Aunt Susi understood something deeper. Language is more than vocabulary. It carries values. 

Today Marie is grateful for that insistence. Because of her aunt, she still speaks Tongan and can now pass it on to her own son. 

Growing Up Between Two Worlds

Marie was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and raised in East Palo Alto, California, but part of her childhood unfolded in Vava’u, Tonga. As toddlers, she and her sisters spent several years living with their paternal grandparents while their parents remained in the United States working to create a better path for their family.

Those early years left a lasting impression. Her grandparents were entrepreneurs who ran convenience stores, a bakery, restaurants, and a fishing business. Watching them operate and expand those ventures exposed Marie to business at an early age.

Back in the Bay Area, she grew up in a home full of relatives — aunts, uncles, and cousins always around. Life wasn’t always easy. Her parents’ relationship faced challenges, but one thing stood out: their determination to keep moving forward.

As the eldest daughter in a large Tongan family, Marie stepped into a caregiving role early in life. Helping care for her siblings and support her parents shaped her resilience and taught her how to lead during difficult moments.

Growing up Polynesian American also meant learning to balance two identities. For us living in the diaspora, we feel the quiet tension between honoring  heritage and navigating life in the United States. This is Marie’s experience as well.  Over time she came to understand that culture is something you carry forward thoughtfully — some traditions remain central, while others evolve with each generation.

Her parents’ work ethic reinforced that mindset in working long hours doing whatever was necessary to create stability for their children.

Eventually her father moved into real estate, flipping homes long before it became popular. Marie remembers helping assemble the mailers he sent to potential sellers and tagging along to construction sites. Watching rundown properties slowly transform showed her what persistence and vision could achieve over time.

Seeing her parents create something through sheer effort planted an early idea in her mind: one day, she would create something of her own.

The Spark Behind Vua Beauty

Raised between cultures, Marie grew up navigating two systems of knowledge. In the United States, modern medicine was often the first place people turned when something felt wrong. Yet within Polynesian families, there was also a long tradition of plant-based remedies and practices passed down through generations.

For us in the diaspora, that ancestral knowledge exists quietly alongside Western systems — sometimes remembered only when other options fall short.

Marie had struggled with eczema for years. During the COVID19 period, stress triggered one of the worst flare-ups she had experienced. The itching was constant and the inflammation spread across her skin.

She tried everything doctors recommended — steroids, antihistamines, and treatments meant to calm the symptoms. Nothing worked.

Frustrated and exhausted, she called her mother and asked if there was anything else she could try.

Her mother shared a tonic recipe passed down from her grandmother. Marie decided to try it and within a day, the itching stopped. The redness began to fade and her skin started to feel better.

For Marie, that was a full circle moment. The remedy that eased her pain most came from the same cultural wisdom that had lived within her heritage all along. That realization sparked a new question: if this helped her, what would it look like to share it while honoring where they came from?

That question became the beginning of Vua Beauty.

Building A Brand

Marie spent more than twenty years in the beauty industry, where she quickly noticed something missing. Pacific Islanders were rarely represented in those spaces. Vua Beauty is her way of changing that narrative.

The company’s first product, Enga Vital Wellness Tonic, draws inspiration from sources long used to support women recovering after childbirth. In Tonga, enga has been valued for restoring strength and balance to the body during demanding physical transitions.

Turning that vision into a company hasn’t been easy. Access to funding, networks, and information can be difficult, especially for Pacific Islander founders who are often overlooked. Pacific Islanders are frequently grouped into the broader AAPI category, where the realities of our communities can disappear within a much larger population. As a result, funding, research, and public attention often flow elsewhere, leaving Pacific Islander entrepreneurs to build with far fewer opportunities and resources.

Still, Marie believes progress begins with action.

As she puts it,

“The most important step is simply starting. Growth comes from continuing forward.”

The Polynesian Way

Today Marie lives in Southern California with her husband, Siaosi, and their son. Their immediate families live in Hawaii and the Bay Area, so they rely heavily on the support system they have built around them.

Becoming a mother reshaped how Marie thinks about care. After the birth of her son, the early weeks were exhausting. Recovery, sleepless nights, and constant feeding schedules quickly revealed something Polynesian families have long understood — parenting is not meant to be done alone.

Family and friends stepped in with meals, encouragement, and support. Her sisters even stayed for weeks to assist with nighttime feedings so she could rest.

That experience reinforced something she had always understood growing up: strength in Polynesia is communal. It is people showing up for each other.

These days Marie moves between motherhood and entrepreneurship. Mornings begin early with feeding the baby and answering emails, while work often happens in small windows between naps. Her husband usually prepares dinner while she spends time playing with their son, and once the baby is asleep, the workday often resumes.

Running a wellness brand has also made Marie more mindful of her own well-being. She knows that her message of helping begins with taking care of herself too.

Wear Your Story

At Poly Girl, the message is simple: Wear Your Story.

For Marie, that means living authentically and staying true to who you are in every space you enter. Through Vua Beauty she hopes other women feel encouraged to pursue their own ideas and dreams.

It is never too late to start.

Marie is currently focused on growing the brand through collaborations, new product launches, and expanding awareness of Polynesian traditional medicine. 

For other Poly Girls who may be afraid to begin something of their own, her advice is simple:

“Take the risk. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and your goals.”

Because the names we reclaim, what we preserve, and the stories we choose to tell become the very things that open doors for Poly Girls to walk through.

Follow Marie and Vua Beauty

Instagram: @vuabeauty
Website: vuabeauty.com