What happens when an everyday ritual becomes a canvas for cultural expression? With its latest limited-edition Artist Collection, method is turning its iconic body wash bottles into canvases, commissioning seven next-generation Latinx artists to co-create unique fragrances and bespoke designs rooted in their cities, their heritage, and their creative vision. One of those artists is Larissa De Jesús Negrón, a Puerto Rican painter and illustrator whose bottle captures the light, landscape, and flora of Old San Juan.
method worked closely with each artist to ensure the fragrance and design told the same story, and for De Jesús Negrón, that collaboration became a portal into San Juan. Inspired by the arched windows of Old San Juan, tropical flora and fauna, the island’s landscapes, and the warm light of a Caribbean sunset, her design transforms the bottle into a surreal window into home. Pineapple, tangerine, and white peach were chosen to echo the tropical world at the heart of her design, while hibiscus, quenepas, rolling green hills, and a garita on the skyline bring the spirit of Puerto Rico into an object designed to live in one of the most intimate spaces of the home. A collaboration between the artist's vision and method's belief that a bottle can carry a whole world inside it.
For De Jesús Negrón, the collaboration also represents a natural extension of her work, which has long explored the intimacy of home. By moving her art beyond galleries and exhibitions and into an everyday ritual, the project creates a new kind of encounter between artist and audience. Whether the bottle sparks a memory of San Juan, a sense of Puerto Rican pride, or simply curiosity about the island, De Jesús Negrón hopes that first encounter leaves people feeling connected to something familiar, even if they have never experienced it before.
De Jesús Negrón is one of seven next-generation Latinx artists behind the collection, each one co-creating a body wash rooted in their city, their heritage, and their creative vision. Together, they make up method's Artist Collection — eight limited-edition body washes, each a canvas.
The full collection:
Larissa De Jesús Negrón x San Juan — pineapple, tangerine, white peach
Derek Abella x Miami — lily of the valley, amber, rose
Camila Rosa x New York City — vanilla chai, cashmere, santal
Maria Garcia Vargas x Chicago — raspberry, heavy cream, layer cake
Ashley Macias x Phoenix — cactus blossoms, white sands, jasmine
Mel Depaz x Los Angeles — water lily, coconut, solar bloom
David Maldonado x Houston — peach nectar, honey, sweet vanilla
method x San Francisco — marshmallow, strawberry, spun sugar
When method came to you with the idea of turning a body-wash bottle into a canvas, what made you say yes?
I said yes because I love the idea of my work reaching so many people through a completely new medium. As a painter, I’m used to showing my work in galleries and exhibitions, so the opportunity to bring it into someone’s home, and even into something as intimate as their shower, felt really fun and interesting to me. method also gave me real creative freedom from the start, which made all the difference. They trusted me to bring my own world to the bottle, and that openness is what made this feel like a real collaboration.
Take us inside the beginning of this piece. What was the first image, color, feeling, or idea you had in your head when you started making it?
The first thing I thought about was how method's body wash would exist within a space. I imagined a colonial home in Old San Juan, being in the shower and looking out the window at this breathtaking view of the mountains, the sea, and the city. From there, I started thinking about the flora, fauna, and scents that remind me of home. I thought about tropical scents like pineapple, peach, and tangerine, and the colors that come with them. I kept imagining the colors of a sunset, especially that warm orange light hitting the leaves. That’s where I decided to include la flor de maga and my favorite fruit, quenepas.
There’s something fun and intimate about putting art in the shower. What does it mean to you to have your work become part of someone’s everyday ritual? Do you think changing where people encounter art can change how they experience it?
Yes, I think there’s something really refreshing about encountering art in a place where you wouldn’t typically expect it. And especially for Latinx and Caribbean audiences, seeing a Caribbean artist represented through a method body wash — something they use as part of their everyday life — feels meaningful to me.I hope it can be inspiring, especially for people who have their own creative ambitions and might not always see themselves represented in these spaces.
Your process can be spontaneous and intuitive. Was there a moment during this project when you surprised yourself with where the artwork was going?
It all surprised me. The first thing was how quickly I could bring an idea to life. I was also surprised that I could use so little detail and only three colors and still capture the essence of San Juan as I see it. It was a challenge to create an image that felt like the city without trying to depict every detail, but I think it came to life beautifully.
What happens when your visual language meets a brand that already has such a recognizable visual world? Did you feel like you were pushing against that language, playing with it, or finding a way to exist inside it?
From the very beginning, I felt the collaboration was naturally aligned with my practice. The bathroom has been a recurring motif in my work for years because I’m fascinated by how, in the shower, you return to yourself. You’re alone with your thoughts. For me, method provided an opportunity to keep exploring something I’ve already been interested in, while grounding it more deeply in the place I was born, San Juan.
Your work is deeply connected to identity and place. How does your Puerto Rican background or your relationship to home and memory find its way into your art?
I’ve always had a profound interest in the home. I love who I can be there, where there’s no need to perform or impress. I’ve always been good at entertaining myself, and ever since I was a little girl, home was where I felt most creative.
Growing up in Puerto Rico, surrounded by nature, culture, community, and delicious food, all of those things became engraved in me. So, in many ways, everything I create is an echo of the memory of home.
Beauty and self-care can sometimes feel like loaded ideas. What does self-care mean to you?
Self-care is paying attention to yourself. It’s not sabotaging yourself or ignoring your needs. It’s less about doing more and more about allowing yourself to feel. Beauty is different because it’s truly in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is a feeling, not a fact.
I think something as natural as using a method body wash can become a form of self-care because it gives you a moment to slow down and take a breath after a long day. That kind of attention to ourselves can have an incredible impact on our overall health and well-being.
Do you remember the first time you realized that your art could live outside of a traditional gallery or studio space?
I think the first time I realized this was when I was around 22 and started making art on clothes. I would paint my jeans, purses, and other pieces simply because I wanted to take my art with me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was paving the way toward having my work reach thousands of people physically, not just digitally, which feels like an incredible privilege.
This bottle feels like the fullest expression of that idea — something people will hold in one of the most private moments of their day, not hanging on a gallery wall. That's a kind of reach I couldn't have designed for myself, and method made it possible.
And to close out our chat: when you think about the person who finds this bottle on a shelf but maybe hasn’t seen your art before; what would you want that first encounter to feel like?
I would hope they feel connected to something, or to someone. Maybe they’ve been to San Juan before and a memory comes back.
Maybe they laugh or smile, or maybe they just feel something. I can also imagine a Puerto Rican, whether living on the island or somewhere else, seeing a Puerto Rican artist and an image that feels familiar, and feeling a sense of pride. Maybe they see a little bit of themselves in it.
If they’ve never been to San Juan, maybe it sparks a curiosity to visit, or to learn more about Puerto Rico and the beauty and abundance of the island. Or maybe they simply pick up the bottle and smell it, and suddenly they’re reminded of something from their childhood. There are so many memories and ideas that a scent can ignite. Ultimately, I hope that encountering this bottle creates a good feeling within them.
And I think that's what makes method the right home for this kind of work. They built a platform that lets artists like me bring something personal into a space that millions of people move through every single day. That kind of reach, a Puerto Rican artist, on a shelf, in someone's shower, in a city I've never been to, that doesn't happen without a brand that genuinely believes art belongs everywhere, not just in galleries. I'm grateful they made that possible.
Larissa is currently working on two solo shows for 2027, one at Luis De Jesús Gallery in LA and the other at Kalkman Gallery in Maastricht.
Check out the full collection at methodproducts.com
This story is a collaboration between PAPER and method.
