Premium Beauty News - What is your exact positioning and what do you think are your main assets to be successful in this segment?

Henri Tinchant - Asquan is a boutique global company that develops, sources, creates, produces and markets turn-key beauty solutions with great passion for prestigious brands and retailers all over the globe. With offices in Hong Kong, the USA, Europe, Brazil and Australia we focus on full outstanding customer service and fast-track innovation and on-trend creativity. Thanks to our strategically smart and lean structure, our pricing is extremely effective and competitive. Our teams are extremely experienced on a global level with a perfect blend of Asian and Western communication, we speak over 7 languages!

Premium Beauty News - Your industrial partners are European, Korean and Chinese?

Henri Tinchant - That’s right! We have established operations and factories in China, Korea, Europe and the USA in order to provide our customers with strategic production capabilities. All of our cutting-edge state-of-the art factories are fully accredited and safe. Our Asquan’s global R&D presence provides the perfect platform for launching products locally or globally. With over 8 R&D laboratories and over 35 development chemists, we stay on top of the latest industry trends in all categories of colour cosmetics while following local and global regulations. With on-site analytical labs, we control the formula from development to production. The use of high-tech cutting edge raw materials enables us to offer the most superior textures and finishes. From the latest cushion technology to the most luxurious and long wearing metallic liquid lip formulations, our formulas are sure to impress. The marriage of these elite formulations with optimum packaging makes us a perfect turn-key solution.

Premium Beauty News - Your team confirms that you also rely heavily on the "men"! It would be more accurate to say "women"!

Henri Tinchant - True, there are many women! But it’s a bit of a coincidence. I also have several men colleagues with me. In general, to succeed in this business, it is obviously very important to combine competence with experience.

Angel Tsoi, for example, my CEO, is a dynamic and strong business leader with over 30 years’ experience in the world of consumer product sourcing, designing, manufacturing and executing supply chain management solutions worldwide. Angel has worked with Li and Fung, a global leader in the beauty biz, Mast industries (a Limited Brands group), and Avon Cosmetics on leading prestige cosmetic brands, retailers and specialty beauty brands to design, create and manage major product innovations. Angel oversees for the entire global Asquan Group all areas of general management, production, engineering, logistics and much more.

Heather Brekke, who is Vice President Sales North America, has over 10 years of colour cosmetics experience focusing on international sales and product development. Due to her focused experience in contract manufacturing, she possesses a vast knowledge of formulas and filling equipment/capabilities. Heather has worked with leading global beauty brands, retailers, and specialty brands including Mary Kay, Avon, Revlon, Coty, L’Oréal, Too Faced, Stila, etc. Heather has a strong capability with transfers of technology to global factories. Her balance of development expertise, brand knowledge, and beauty proficiency allows brands to push the limits in formulation and filling to bring new innovation to the market. Heather leads the US sales and project development team.

With 20 years of success designing beauty bag collections for the most beloved names in the industry, such as butter London, Nordstrom, Sebastian, Schwarzkopf and P&G, Wendy Skolfield , who is our Business Development Manager, now brings her collaborative design strategies to Asquan Group as the Business Development Manager for the beauty bag category. By translating curated global textile and print trends to the unique branding needs of our clients, her boutique approach results in successful promotions, on budget, every time.

Finally Kitty Chong, Design Manager, based in Hong Kong is creative, smart and has an encyclopaedia of ideas. She studied Advertising and Packaging Design prior to obtaining her degree in Creative Media. She has almost ten years of experience in designing packaging and gift set for the skincare and toiletry business and is thus well versed in our beauty industry. Her designs are often seen in the shops all over the globe.

Premium Beauty News - You rely a lot on the trend forecasts you do every year!

Henri Tinchant - Absolutely! We propose six of them per year! Our clients gain access to our exclusive trend forecasts, so they know what’s next before anyone else. It includes In-house design studio, a comprehensive look at beauty and fashion trends and guidance on how to leverage these trends in a way that accelerates the marketing and sales objectives. The whole is supported of course by a solid research and development team. The other advantage is our ability to provide excellent sourcing while offering the desired production capacity in terms of packaging and of formula ranges in all fields.