Natural skincare products for Children: Florence talks with Helene Fulchi, founder of Minois Paris.

Helene Fulchi is a French Mum living in Lisbon with her husband Nicolas and daughter Paz (3 years old). With a background in marketing and advertisement Helene founded Minois Paris in December 2015. Florence chats with Helene to discover more about this ever expanding children’s skincare range.

 

 

So why Minois?
I had it in mind for a while the idea of creating a treatment brand designed for little ones. When Paz my daughter came along it was a great inspiration for me to begin this adventure. Like all mums, I felt a great sense of responsibility. So I decided to create Minois Paris, a line of children’s skincare.

My initial idea was simple, to offer safe and reliable products that can be used on babies from birth to older children. Our products are free from parabens, sulphates, phenoxyethanol, silicones and artificial colourings. They are very respectful to go on little one’s sensitive skin.

In french Minois is a delicate word describing the face, so it reflects perfectly the softness of the ingredients we use, just as the packaging does.`

 

 

What are the trade shows where you showed the products? 
At the beginning, Minois was present at Playtime and now we are also at Maison & Objet. We will be showing our new products next september at M&O. We work directly with our resellers, no agents in Europe but we have a partner for the Asian market.

Minois is distributed in about 150 stores around the world; can you tell us the breakdown? 
In terms of retail, we really believe in the mix between online and bricks and mortar. It’s very important to offer a real experience both online and in store.

• 65% of our resellers are in France but we work with more and more resellers abroad.
• 50% of them are only bricks and mortar
• 20% are purely online resellers
• 30% of them have both website and physical store.

In France, we really like Centre Commercial Kids, which offer an ethical selection of very nice brands in a beautiful store in the 10th neighborhood in Paris. And Smallable, the place to be to find all the great kid’s brands from fashion to design, and of course skincare – they are located in the heart of the very parisian 6th neighborhood.

Abroad, there is a store in Amsterdam named Archive Store by Anna and Martine. It’s a very well decorated large space with brands from all over the world.

 

 

You are about to open a store in Paris, do you have plans to expand abroad?
It’s not planned for now but yes we do not exclude it :)

It’s easy to use natural ingredients in creams, but it is harder to avoid using the harmful substances. You seem to have a pretty good formula. What makes you proud of your product?
Our products are produced in the South of France, everything is 100% made in France. The aim with Minois is really to offer a safe product and we can’t afford any doubts about the ingredients. The products are going to be used on very sensitive skin of children. We really believe in having the shortest list of ingredients possible and it’s why our products are free from paraben, sulphates, phenoxyethanol, silicones and artificial colorings.

All our products are going through a very strict process of tests with substance experts, and of course we respect all the legal standards.

So far, we only get very positive feedbacks about our products and we have very loyal customers. We are very proud of building this trusty relationship with them.

Thank you Helene, wonderful work! 

www.minoisparis.fr
Follow @minois