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Through Albertini International, Valorie Albertini sells skin care products specifically designed for women older than 40.
Through Albertini International, Valorie Albertini sells skin care products specifically designed for women older than 40.

Business Spotlight: The Skinny on Skin Care

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Entrepreneurial endeavor Albertini International LLC began from a stark realization by its founder.

“My skin was going down the tubes,” says Valorie Albertini, a baby boomer who formed the company and began research and development for its skin care products more than three years ago. “I was under this gigantic delusion that this wasn’t going to happen to me.”

The problem Albertini encountered is one she says all women older than 40 are susceptible to – skin deterioration due to the effects of menopause.

Building on her decades of work in the beauty industry with such brands as Jhirmack and Sebastian International, Albertini set out to develop a solution. She had worked for nine years as Sebastian’s director of new product development and spent time in the 1970s as Jhirmack’s manager of skin care and cosmetics, where she extensively tested products and lectured salon operators worldwide on the results.

Now living and working on five acres in Brookline, Albertini officially began selling her own skin care line in July. The first Albertini International product to hit the market was the Divine Skin Hydrator, which Albertini says has sold 1,000 pieces since the launch. Three other products are on line: the Rough Love scrub, the Tint Plus makeup base with SPF protection and the Warm Love mask made with pumpkin, papaya and pineapple enzymes that first shipped in October.

Albertini, who is hands-on in the ingredient mixing and testing process though manufacturing takes place in Dallas, says two products are in development – a shampoo that adds volume and a self-tanner that might be released in the summer.

A partner and a program
A key to moving the products from R&D into the retail space was bringing on partner Janice Petit de Mange at the start of the year. Petit de Mange is a childhood friend of Albertini, having grown up together in south Philadelphia, and she brings computer technologies and customer service expertise from years working in management for Black & Decker. Albertini says Petit de Mange joined Albertini International after Black & Decker offered her an employment buyout.

The partners quickly identified Amazon.com as a point of sale they wanted to tap. They joined the Fulfillment by Amazon program, which currently sells up to 10 percent of Albertini International’s products. Albertini says Amazon holds inventory and fills orders made on Amazon.com in exchange for a 15 percent handling charge.

“We just thought it would be a benefit to be involved with an established organization like that,” says Albertini, a hair-dresser by training who owned and operated Beauty Mart in Springfield in the early 2000s. “It’s one of the first places (shoppers) go to look for things.”

Other sales avenues are the AlbertiniInternational.com shopping cart, where the bulk of orders come, two local salons and two independent representative salespeople just added in Colorado and south Philadelphia.

In Springfield, Albertini International products are sold retail at Salon East in Southern Hills Shopping Center and Hairy’s Salon in the Lambeth Building on East Sunshine Street.

Owner Melissa Randall says Hairy’s Salon has carried inventory since the summer, and the top seller is the Tint Plus facial moisturizer with SPF 20 that acts as a foundation for makeup.

“There are a lot of tinted sunscreens that give you no (foundation) coverage,” Randall says. “Hers has good coverage, it’s nonfragant and not oily.”

The tinted moisturizer retails for $20 per 1.9 ounces, and Randall says Hairy’s Salon has sold several dozen bottles. Albertini International is the only line of skin care the salon carries, she notes, though hair care products by Joico, Moroccan Oil, Chi and Osis are stocked.

“When it comes to older skin that needs more moisture, your only options are stuff you can get from the doctor, clinical type stuff,” Randall adds. “Her product actually addresses the issue of older skin.”

More than skin deep
With baby boomer’s hormones significantly changing, Albertini says a moisture barrier near the skin’s surface begins to quickly deteriorate.

“It’s not always exactly when people are going through menopause,” she notes. “But that’s pretty much the trigger, whether it happens at 45, or 48, or 53. Your hormones start to change in that age bracket and it changes your skin.”

She describes skin cells as having one layer that resembles grapes, another more like raisins and the final surface layer looking like corn flakes overlapping. Ingredients such as enzymes, Arctic peat and wasabi are key to the products’ effectiveness, she says, because they remove dead skin cells through exfoliation.

The Divine skin hydrator is the first product Albertini began developing as a solution to the female aging symptoms. The $14, 9-ounce bottles are the premier product in the budding line and one she developed with a close team of testers: a group of 15 women, most of whom have been friends since their Philadelphia days in 1969. For the last 23 years, they’ve met the third weekend in July and coined the outing “Wild Women’s Weekend.”

Noting she relies on these women to offer honest feedback during the product development phases, Albertini points to the first rule in testing: “It doesn’t matter what you think, the tester. You have to listen to your results.”

The next step is spreading the word. Albertini International has begun sending press kits to magazines such as Allure, More and Women’s Health. “We’re sending kits to them hoping to be on their ‘Best new products under $25’ – things like that,” Albertini says, adding she’s scheduled Dec. 7 to bring product on KOLR 10’s “Ozarks Live” lifestyle show with Tom Trtan and Shannon Fox.

The market is out there, she says.

“I am the dead center of the baby boomers. The number of us that are going through menopause is astronomical,” she says. “It is changing the marketplace.”[[In-content Ad]]

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