Premium Beauty News - What have been the highlights of 2008 for Fiabila, in particular with regard to innovation?

Pierre Miasnik - Whether in France, Mexico, India, Japan or in the USA, the totality of Fiabila’s manufacturing sites recorded increased activity in 2008. In the USA the volume we produced has doubled. Even though we expect decision makers to turn very careful on these various markets, we remain confident, in particular when considering our order backlog and Fiabila’s financial strength.

We have always regarded innovation and quality as the key propellers of our steady growth since more than 30 years. Today, only to speak about France, 20% of our staff is involved in research and development. Last year, we finished the conception and industrial implementation of a new method to produce thixotropic gels. This impacts the quality of products, their fluidity and brightness.

Pierre Miasnik, Président de Fiabila

Furthermore, we concretized a technical partnership in the USA with NaturalNano Inc. regarding the use of natural nano tubes in nail polishes. These tubes are used to serve as vehicles for active substances that will slowly diffuse in the product. Their action can therefore be time-controlled.

Premium Beauty News - Environment and sustainable development are the new buzzwords in the industry. How do you address this challenge?

Pierre Miasnik - Of course we’re still hardly working on water-based enamels.

Our investments related to safety, productivity and working environment are growing strongly. Installing sprinklers on the entire production site of Maintenon (France) implied to invest more than 2 million euros.

Production induce pollution, raw materials consumption and requires energy… Why should we produce low quality enamels that will not be used and that will be destroyed eventually? The market is crowded with such products. Our mission is to produce high-quality formulas only, in that way we contribute to protect the environment.

Premium Beauty News - What is your position with regard to the development of full-service?

Pierre Miasnik – Structurally, we are subcontractors both for the production of bulks and the filling of products. That does mean we have the manpower, the equipment, the computers and plenty other required resources. There’s only a small step from subcontracting towards full-service, and we have been proposing it for several years.