The success of Cristina Fogazzi, Bresciana, 47 years old, which many know as "the cynical beautician" and that from an beauty center and from her Instagram profile has come to turn 61 million euros per year is one of those phenomena that for theInnate Italian conservatism is often underestimated.Social Networks, online purchases, influencers, beauty centers, skincare, beauty products are all topics that generate raises from behind.Even its commercial success is addressed as a mystery of this crazy century and resolved as a "strange, but true".Instead it positions itself right at the center of what are the most interesting dynamics of these years: the end of intermediation, trust in influencers, the change of canons of beauty, online trade, female entrepreneurship.
In the last year, in the United States there has been a boom in dental appliances, because many people have taken advantage of having to wear the mask and staying closed at home for a long time.This news intrigued me because I imagined that self -care had decreased with pandemic.But I ask you that you certainly know more.Instead it is just like that: it has increased.It is clear that, not leaving the house, less attention was dedicated to the make-up because-apart from me that I had to make stories on Instagram-the rest of the world was spared from this pernicious habit and could not make up.But all the treatments that we women do - you men less, but perhaps you too - having more time available ... well, people have made them.
I heard you say that the males, when they interview you, ask immediately and only how much money bills the "cynical beautician".Perhaps that preconception for which the girls competed for those who were the most beautiful and the males the richest still resists.Then the males when they see me on Corriere Economia or on television dressed in the rose they still think "oh well", instead they then feel the words "sixty -one million euros" and there the attention changes.
I also heard the figure: 61 million euros when they had rounded up to 50.Because it is an infinite discussion that is within my company, sorry.When they give me the data, I want the Sell-out data, that is, how much I sold.It is useless for VAT to take me away, because the client VAT paid for it.Then that there is no VAT in the balance sheet is another type of speech.
When you say that men are interested only in the figures to let it understand that, on the other hand, it should be interested in it: what?To the fact that I am the only European case of e-commerce of beauty products related to a ... oh god, celebrity does not seem to me ... let's say, to a person born in social networks.In the United States there is glossier which is a line for teenagers that invoices more than 100 million euros, born from a blog, "Into the gloss".Then there are all the lines related to celebrities, Coty made by Kylie Jenner, Fenty Beauty made by Rihanna, etc..But, in relation, if one makes 150 million in the United States and I do 60 in Italy, maybe I'm doing more.
And in addition to the numbers?Net of numbers is not understood the phenomenon.I just skinc - in the beauty sector you can do it or only a line or various, like Lancôme, which you all know, that makes creams, tricks, perfumes, while I only make skincare.Think how many types of products exist among the tricks ... but I only do the skincare and, in Italy, I do how much a big brand.It doesn't matter that they do more than me in the world, I do as much as they in Italy, and everything starting from a blog and an account on Instagram.
There is also an embarrassment to talk about money that I think you don't have at all.No.First because we want women to never talk about money because it would be vulgar, but in reality only because it is still considered as a thing only by "male room".Second: but if you have a company of what you should talk?Also because when you talk about a lot of money you don't have to think about the entrepreneur with the villa in Sardinia (which I don't have), but that my company, born from me that I put the creams to the beauty center under vacuum, at this moment it gives work directlyto 53 people.But if you add the logistics that works only for me, the manufacturer of cosmetics the same and others, I have an induced of 200 people who have been working for a year just for me.Many people who thanked me and said to me: "Without you this year I closed".So behind the money you have to think that that income has formed honestly, without a club in the Bahamas or toys.And also selling everything online where everything is traced.
Yes, but there is also another aspect.For example, I, when I receive the receipt of a bank transfer, the three hundred piece rag before throwing it into the garbage.Was also from 70 euros.Yes good.But why?!I understand if you don't want to say what votes - on the contrary, I don't agree even on that - but I don't understand these great mysteries on the salary: what is there if one earns a lot or little?Instead when these figures come out in the newspapers, my father -in -law always arrives who says: "You don't have to say how much you earn, which then kidnap you!".
I understand a little.Then you will also understand Barbara, my assistant who often brings my dog for a walk, who instead tells me: «If you don't stop saying this thing about the turnover, sooner or later they beat me and take me the dog away for the redemption! ".When it happened to Lady Gaga, panic broke out in my house.And do you know that influencers show the houses in the home tour?I can't because my husband is terrified that thieves come.
You have to make one of representation only for Instagram.Often they write to me: "Cristina, but let us see the house!", But my husband tells me not to take pictures even if we are close to the door because then they understand where we live.
I seem to note, however, in this way of your own also in common element with one of the reasons for your success: you have a lot of trust in people.It is true, it is the one I grew up on, but more than trust I call it credibility.In the sense that Rihanna's tricks buy them because it is Rihanna.And it's not that Rihanna makes the tricks, but it's very cool and you think that her tricks will also be cool.Compared to Rihanna I make another championship.So in my case a relationship of trust was created: I was a beautician and so I began to explain my work on social networks.Long before creating the line, I had a blog and I made hallucinating videos where I explained cellulite with balloons full of water.I wrote a book on cellulite when I still didn't sell any cosmetic product.From that thing there, a credibility was born that led to the fact that they trusted me to buy products "even" online.Because - speaking of trust - when I started there was still the theme of "I don't buy anything because they clon my credit card!".
When did you understand that the explanations and those hallucinating videos would have followed?You must understand that beauty centers have very low marginality.If you make a wax - I don't do it, but let's talk about waxing so they also understand males - to a customer, it means that you have an employee busy for half an hour.If you consider the cost of the rent in Milan, the cost of the employee - if you have hired it as it should - electricity, etc..etc., and build your time cost, you understand that 12 euros of a manicure will never cover that cost.It means that if you are honest (so not if you have employees in black or hired all as an apprentices for 500 euros) and if you want of the trained staff and that is, people who pay 1.300 euros per month in the paycheck (and they cost you about double), if you pay the rent in Milan (I do not say in the center, but in a beautiful area), you are little more than the salary of your collaborator.In addition every month the water to the throat to pay bank receipts.
How you do it?For this the beauticians also sell the creams of a third line, because the cream sell it for 50 euros and you have a wider margin.The problem, however, is that all the lines want you to make a system, that is, that you buy all the products of a line.And he thinks that the first plant costs between ten and twenty thousand euros.Shortly after opening, I really had water in my throat, because I started without money and I couldn't even afford the cream system.So, at some point, to try to earn more I said to myself: "Oh well, let's try to do this line of creams".
And how did it go?I started selling them online and I sold twelve.Then it began to grow.But I understood well that they didn't just buy them my friends when I launched bandages in which nobody believed, not even my partner, while I yes.We ordered 50 pieces.We sold 186 in an hour (which we obviously did not have).At that point I already felt Steve Jobs, I saw myself making the presentation of the new iPhone.Noi fino a lì spedivamo gli ordini dal centro estetico, ma 186 confezioni di bende fanno 186 chili di sali quindi ho dovuto trovare una logistica e da quel momento ho capito che se volevamo fare questo gioco non lo potevamo fare più come fossimo in un sottoscala.
It is easy to take it for granted today, but when you started it was not at all certain that online trade would become what it is now.Two years ago I organized the "cynical circus", that is, we went to the squares to sell a product that until then we had only sold online.I was not in any physical shop, neither Rinascente nor anything else.Non potevamo vendere su suolo pubblico, quindi facevamo comunque ordini online, ma da un luogo reale.Well, in the South we had to open up to many people e-mail addresses because they didn't have them!Or also think that we still have the mark between the possible payment methods: that is, the package arrives and you pay in cash.We suspended it during Covid and then wanted to abolish it completely, because it is a hallucinating lead, but there is a problem: there is still a lot of money bill.Because the mentality of many is still "to see camel by paying pennies".
Did Covid change things?Gave an incredible accelerate.Also because the fact that a package at home aroused you, while you were closed inside if not to bring the dog out, made you say: "Ah, then the world still exists".
There are also problems with the connection.Here, this is madness.When they say that it is necessary to enhance the infrastructures, that the user who reads is asked but what the fuck are the infrastructures ... it means, for example, that if one has to buy the products of a company like mine that sells only online, the lack ofconnection represents a problem.Italy is a country, however, where even before leaving for the holidays you have to inform yourself on which telephone company takes well where you will go or if there is a wi-fi network.And not on the remote islands, but also if you go to Puglia or Liguria.Do you think possible?
You are too awake for not knowing that at some point of the interview I would have said "Chiara Ferragni".Non sai quante volte mi hanno definito “la Chiara Ferragni blablabla”…
Then I ask you: affinity and divergences.But Chiara does another job, it's another type of business.Chiara is a celebrity, Chiara is a Rihanna of the situation, she is not the Cristina Fogazzi of the situation.Chiara is a celebrity that has a clothing line that is not linked to the fact that she also makes the fashion designer, but is linked to the fact that she is a celebrity.And the bulk of her gain derives from the fact that she is a celebrity and from lending her face to brands: it is Dior's face, it is the face of Bulgari, in short, of a lot of gigantic companies.
You sell your products, but I guess they will have asked you to sell products from others too.Yes, they ask me every now and then.But let's see if I can explain to you how I feel ... you have to think that I am the daughter of a worker and to say certain "no" I swear I am ashamed with myself.Because when they want to give you 50 thousand euros to advertise a yogurt - now I am inventing, it has never happened - on the one hand there is the daughter of Rosy who says "my mom to earn them has had to become deaf and has never earned them",While on the other you tell you "makes sense that I, who do another job, starts to talk about the yogurt?".So I said many no, that if my mother knew it would lie to me, but it seemed coherent to me compared to how the following perceives you.I could make a different spottone every day, but the trust we were talking about before would go to vanish.Therefore, I do some things if they make sense.For example, I made the Intimissimi Girl, which is a stuff that amused me a lot, because if you think of the models of Intimissimi and then think of me, well, I liked the message: that I, at 46 years old, a size 44,A person of 1 meter and 62, I was the one who advertises the underwear ... it seemed beautiful to me and in line with myself.
In the things you do you often have to rely on instinct, there is no reference model of reference.In this case I inspire me very much: because Chiara, in my opinion, in his career he said many "no" to be able to position himself like this.Although very often the Fast Fashion brands give you a lot more money than those of luxury, it becomes a strategic choice to say no to someone who maybe cover you with gold, to say yes to Dior, who maybe gives you much less money, because he says "friend, I'm making you work for Dior".I always tell everyone, in any sector, to look at those who are better than you.If they have become good there will be a reason.Here, another of the problems around this evanescent world of social networks is that there is always a bit the risk of thinking that people are miraculous, that it was graceful by the Lord, that it happened there by chance.While in my opinion this is only a way to reduce the phenomenon.In the bar speech everything is fine, but you cannot fail to understand that if one becomes Chiara Ferragni and everything else there is a reason.Who practically invented one thing and he was able to manage it very well.
Instead of Intimissimi.It seems to me that you played a decisive role in changing the perception of the canons of beauty.Non te lo so dire.Certainly not alone.Because, in reality, there was a wave and I was in this wave and I am there too.I intercepted it, it's true, but because I really felt mine.I already lived like this, it was natural.Do you know what the ass blow was instead?That this thing here has reached me at 45.At 20 maybe I dug.At 45 you have a more mature look than yourself and compared to others too, so if you put a photo and in a thousand thousand they write to you that you are fat, you care.At 20 he is a little more difficult, I don't even know how I would have taken it.I would like to tell you that at 20 I was like this, but it's not true.Non so come l’avrei presa e se sarei stata coraggiosa.It is easy to be courageous when you have a completely different awareness of you.
Now is there the opposite risk?Beautiful people who want to participate and show small happy imperfections of being able to say: "Look, I also have defects!".It's funny.It is the style of the cosmetic business that I have been talking about for years: the advertisements of the anti -wrinkle creams with the photo of the twenty -year -olds.And you are automatically thinking: "But what, are you in Cojonà?".Be patient.Now you are moving something for which who they put?Sharon Stone!But fuck you!I understand that she is 60 years old, but she is Sharon Stone!But at least now they have begun to put some ladies with gray hair, which immediately makes aging.And in the same way now you see a twenty year old who, logically, does not have a thread of fat, but to do it too about body positives says: "Look, I also have defects, every now and then I grow a hair on the chin".And you come to tell them: "Listen to me, it's not that there is this sector here you have to ride it!".I didn't have this problem because I really had the defects, a great blow of ass.
Why do they use Sharon Stone?Because the way to sell you the beauty product was what they call "aspiration": that is, you saw a pussy and you hoped that by buying that product I became pussy too.Sense of inadequacy: «Fuck, but see, Sharon Stone at 60 is like this and instead at 52 I get shit, maybe it is because she uses a cream of a luxury brand at the red orchid.Famla me to buy ".Now there is Isabella Rossellini to make the face of Lancôme, but I remember the controversies of when they had retired it.If it happened now, what would have happened?And look, it's not many years ago ....Today a boycott and insults would start which to those of Lancôme would touch Rossellini until she decides to stop.
Even during this conversation you told me: "Men, men, men ...". C’è davvero ancora l’idea che l’uomo per essere uomo deve puzzare? Tuttora l’eterosessuale medio italiano si lava sotto la doccia con la cosa che fa la schiuma, qualsiasi essa sia, shampoo, saponetta,etc.Maybe the eye area puts it as well, but it doesn't go to perfumery to buy it, at the maximum question to the wife "I am coming to me, do you have something to give me?".That, in reality, the average heterosexual Italian does not even buy socks and underpants.If he makes them buy them first by his mother and then from his wife.
I am Campania, therefore I know the extreme cases in which men get bought their underwear even from the mother -in -law.You're right, but it's not only in Campania.Non dico non ci siano estremi, ma l’italiano medio fa ancora così. Ti posso raccontare un aneddoto dell’eterosessuale tipo? Il mio socio ha comprato la fascia per gli addominali di Cristiano Ronaldo!Noi lo abbiamo preso per il culo, ma questo compra.
I didn't even know it existed.I see a great return of the eighties.The famous vibraculus bands!Always there we are!And this is my partner!That he should have learned something ... but we were during the pandemic, he says, and he could no longer play soccer and play sports.
I thought Ronaldo in underwear on all those billboards had changed something.I, frankly, a little perfumerie Bazzico, but I have never seen men enter to buy the eye area.Instead I see poor martyrs, that we usually pass forward in a row, with the list of things that the girlfriend told him to buy.They make me tenderness.
So it's a way of protecting minorities.I always say that in my company out of 53 there are 4 men.Noi tuteliamo le minoranze al contrario.