Premium Beauty News - Apparently, the nail polish segment still has been spared from the crisis.

Pierre Miasnik - It is a fact that nail polish is trendy and getting trendier every day. The European market in 2009 shows a double digit growth rate and is not declining, quite the contrary. As far as we are concerned, our consolidated turnover has made a leap of 20% between 2008 and 2009 and the trend should be even higher in 2010.

Premium Beauty News - Since your creation in 1977, your strategy development is as regular as clockwork. In 1996, as a forerunner, you implant yourself in Mexico. In 1999, you set foot in India. In 2000 in Japan and the following year ... in the United States. What is your next move?

Pierre Miasnik - Like everyone else, we are of course carefully following what’s going on in South America, particularly Brazil. And this year could well be the one to establish ourselves on this continent. But we also have ambitions for our main and historical production units in France, in Maintenon and Plaisir. We have eventually obtained the rights to use a large area adjacent to the former which, in addition, recently received significant investment concerning production safety. As for the conditioning unit, in Plaisir which employs 95 people, eleven of them dedicated to Quality Control, it will receive two new lines next June. Our Indian unit is being expanded with the construction of a new production tool that takes into account climate related issues allowing the plant to be upgraded at the required quality levels to support the inexorable market development.

Premium Beauty News - You pride yourself on the fact of only producing nail polish! Why is it so?

Pierre Miasnik - For a very simple reason! You can only manufacture properly things upon which you have a knowledge! This trade is already complex and difficult enough to try and satisfy increasingly more demanding customers, why do you want us to develop other businesses thus reducing our investment capacities in our core business?

I will even stress on the fact that our "mono-product" position can only help reassure and reinforce our current and future customers. Especially since we are asked to comply with Flawless Quality policies which only a company entirely dedicated to its business can claim providing. Moreover, do you know that twenty people on a total of 85 work every day at Fiabila Maintenon, in the R&D department. Not every company can say that. And we are quite proud of having established control standards which have become genuine "standards" in the industry.

Premium Beauty News - Isn’t it all about everything having to be "still more this and still more that" for nail polishes?

Pierre Miasnik - If you want to caricature, yes! Actually it is "still more"! And it starts with "still more" regulatory constraints on components, manufacturing standards and level of purity.

You cannot imagine the complexity of our business whose fundamentals are constantly questioned at the mercy of a particular administrative decision issued from a country whose intentions are not always focused on protecting users but are really technical trade barriers. As far as we are concerned, we have implemented very stringent procedures at all production levels to ensure full compliance of our products to regulations and standards across the world.

Premium Beauty News - The industry is taking more and more interest in water-based nail polish. What is your point of view?

Pierre Miasnik - We have applied for two patents on water-based nail polishes and of course, we are still focusing on the subject. But you must bear in mind that the more the proprieties of solvent-based varnishes improve in terms of ease of application, drying, brilliance and hold, the more the gap automatically widens with water-based polishes. Especially when “85% bio sourced" polishes will be available upon registration of our patents.

Concerning our strategic priorities, we can point out our research efforts to improve the performance of nail care and filing a patent on the use of aldehydes, and finally, our research efforts in polymers with the creation six months ago, of a brand new department, at Maintenon.