29 March 2024

Organic Pure Care Journey: Inside the Mind of Founder & CEO Andrea Candian

As Founder/CEO of Organic Pure Care, Andrea Candian created the haircare company in 2011 based on the foundation of precious plant extracts, going green and true European VeganOK Standards to all Organic Pure Care products.

Since then, the company has thrived into one with a mission to protect and nourish hair and scalp while meeting the expectations of professionals that want natural ingredients with excellent results.

Organic Pure Care was birthed from his vision. A child born into the beauty industry, his family of passionate hairstylists educated this future leader to make his dream come true by creating an organization that could join his passion for business with his family roots. Thinking entrepreneurship and environmental responsibility do not often go hand in hand, but Andrea Candian has hacked the model to create the balance necessary to accomplish a green company with full return on investment. He speaks with us to share his journey and vision for the future of Organic Pure Care

You have seen your grandfathers, uncles and father in the beauty business, which gives you a unique perspective of what has worked throughout their journey and what has not, explain how you have taken your proximity to the industry and applied that to the birth of OPC?
I was born in a family that has its roots in the world of beauty. My grandfather had a salon where he worked from 1950 until the late 1980s, involving and forming his two sons. My uncle followed the most practical and technical part, while my father was more involved into the study of the products and the commercial aspects. I spent my childhood learning to recognize the mastery and gestures of a professionality that left the mark in people. Smells, the sound of scissors, the talk and the expression of the satisfied customers, were the background of a childhood lived in contact with people used to work with passion. I’ve been able to see the evolution of a world that has changed quickly, thanks to the introduction of chemistry that has allowed to develop and improve many aspects of this work. However I also saw the other side of the coin and the price of this innovation for the people who work daily with highly aggressive products. By the end of the 1980s, when my grandfather stopped working, the salon was sold because my dad had embarked himself on the trade route, conveying his passion for beauty in antique trade, while my uncle abandoned his activity precisely due to problems of health caused by contact with chemicals. My professional activity did not start directly from the family business, but, after few years of entrepreneurship in different areas, I decided to take that background back; a background strictly connected with me and that I did not want to lose.
I was not an hairdresser and I did not have a specific training, apart in my memory, so I started from my scientific studies and from the subject that was the most passionate for me: the study of the products and their ingredients. I wanted to take advantage of all the utilities that technical and chemical innovation had brought, but also I wanted to improve it further, in order to give benefit to the professionals working directly in contact with these substances. I studied ingredient after ingredient, discovering the endless properties of some natural active ingredients, and with the help of highly specialized laboratory technicians, I managed to produce a line of 10/12 products. Today our company counts about 200 references and we work every day to improve the performance of our products. It was not my intent only to insert natural products on the market, I also wanted to make high-quality products studied to enhance the craftsmanship I had met in my grandparent’s salon and which, still today, is impassioning me more than ever. My challenge, then, is not to saturate the market with standard products conformed to the demands of globalization, price and positioning in the online sales, but rather, I want to reverse this trend by satisfying conscious demands that are focused on the value of  the world of beauty, meant as system of high-level creative professionality.

How have you seen OPC shift from a family company to this beauty brand taking on the international market while keeping up with the giant businesses that have been around for generations?
OPC is still today a Family Company, it is a Family Company in the depths of its soul, and it will always remain with this feature, while acquiring all the most advanced tools to grow and implement its services. My desire is to maintain a family and human identity, based on continuous relationships between people, partners, distributors, trainers, technicians, all of them oriented towards an unique vision with a view that is focused on man and nature with a view to respect, confrontation and ethical growth. Make a comparison with the market laws of big brands does not mean giving up their values, but simply changing their language by expressing themselves in a square where they usually shout. Today, the sale is no longer for the one who has the biggest voice, but for those who has the best product.

Why is the OPC’s mission of “natural” beauty products so important?
The industrial revolution has brought us many advantages, one of many, the use of chemistry that has allowed us to evolve in many areas with many benefits. On the other side, when revolutions happen too quickly leave no time to adjust the shot and eliminate many side effects. Today, however, we have all the instruments that can help us to eliminate what’s wrong and that can help us to go in a different direction, using all the tools available to make the best from the valuable properties of natural ingredients. Now the real revolution is to return back to nature with all the tools of the technique available for us. The future is in nature, but not a nature for few who are content, but a nature for a conscious and demanding market that does not give up on beauty. To enter the world of nature, some green slogans are not enough, but humility, passion and constant research are needed.

Tell me about your renewed training courses and collaborations with hairdressing trainers?
Through research in laboratory and continuous collaboration with our hairdressing, training technical and style experts partners, we have refined products that can meet any need without any waiver. This change implies a different way of doing business, not based just on the product, but on the ongoing relationship between trainers and technicians who are able to get the most out of the product, giving at the same time, added value to an increasingly professionalized and prepared professional.
The hairdresser is a creative and they express themselves through emotional communication that can not be ignored. Style, technique and products must stay together  in a single coherent vision that has to be transmitted from person to person as once, the arts were passed from master to student. This is the basis of our training which is based, above all, on the transmission of knowledge and artistic excellence. The professionalism required in a salon, ranges from the purely stylistic part to the most technical part of the product components, and their use, which is why our team uses the collaboration of different figures. Naturally, the aspect that is most evident in the media is related to stylistic figures, trainer like Angelo De Filippis or Stefano Bonomi who export the concept of Italianity to the world, but also figures like Sean Foley who help us to permeate our stylistic vision with an international tone.

What are OPC’s objectives/launches for 2018?
Our first goal in terms of time is the presentation of our new “male line” that will take place at Cosmoprof in Bologna 2018, while the second, with a long term perspective, concerns the implementation of the entire digital part, programmed to support and to increase the technical training and created  to encourage continuous confrontation between trainers, technicians and designers.

How do you intend to change the professional business in the future, between products/training/digital?
As above mentioned, our entire business system is based on an interchange between the various fields and levels, so the use of digital becomes the indispensable tool to communicate in real time and to deal with resolution and improvement of any aspect directly or indirectly linked to the product and its best use.

What advice do you give to those who are looking to break into the hair industry?
The real advice that I feel to give in order to work in this sector, is to live with passion and love every aspect of your work from the customer who is a person to take care, and to which give attention and respect, and on the other hand the hairdresser intended as a creative interpreter of such needs.

Why is it important to OPC to stay loyal to the hairdressers instead of consumer beauty?
Our company is firstly addressed to the hairdresser and then to the final consumer, because our products are highly technical and require specific skills to be used at the best. Training an hairdresser is the means by which get the most high performance and the best service to the ultimate consumer.

As CEO of a major beauty company, what do you use as motivation to keep the company developing on a competitive international level?
The only real motivation that animates relationships between our partners is an affinity of intent, the same ethical vision, and the share of common values. This allows us not to use persuasive techniques, but to be able to communicate truthfully. When I met Arsalan Hafezi, it was not necessary to convince each other that both of us were already oriented towards the natural world and thanks to this affinity he became my mentor and helped me expand further my mink and my sales network.

Is there something exciting that I have not asked that you think would be exciting to our beauty-obsessed Estetica Readers?
Yes, it concerns Experience, our flagship, the juice of all our business philosophy, an annual event that involves all the people working with us and for us. A moment of growth and meeting. Our real counter where we put all our cards in the table, from the technical training to the final expression of our commitment, parades, shows, and workshops that become the sharing and participation of close and willing people that want to grow under the great hat of Italian beauty and art, but also the encounter of countries and cultures from all around the world.

For more information, please visit www.organicpurecare.com

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