Manucurist It's a family storya mother-daughter collaboration that became a woman's business. So, as Mother's Day approached, we wanted to chat with Gaëlle Lebrat-Personnaz, CEO and co-founder of Manucurist.
She goes back to the genesis of this project she has long been carrying and confides her impressions as a very active woman, mother and entrepreneur.
Gaëlle, you created Manucurist 1996 with your mother. Can you tell us how the idea was born and how you made it grow?
Gaëlle My mom always had an impeccable manicure with beautiful red lacquered nails. After raising her 3 children, she felt destitute and wanted to learn the manicure profession. She worked first for Parisian hair salons until she found the ideal place, Place du marché Saint Honoré. That's how we created the institute. Manucurist dedicated to the beauty of hands.
For my part, I worked 15 years in fashion while helping him by far on product development, communication, etc.
At the end of 2016, I took over the company Manucurist 100% to develop a new type of varnish and care, intended for all women, with carefully selected ingredients and formulas as natural as possible, without compromising their effectiveness.
What are the qualities you admire most about your mommy?
Gaëlle Courage, pugnacity, taste of work, is what I admire especially in my mother. I've always heard her tell me that if I wanted to be free as a woman, I had to be financially independent.
Later, reading Simone de Beauvoir's second sex, I thought I heard my mother: "It was through work that the woman went largely through the distance between her and the male; It is work that can guarantee him a concrete freedom.
What did maternity bring you?
Gaëlle A vast subject only maternity! It's ambiguous: I think it has both weakened and strengthened me. I realized that I was no longer alone and that I was responsible for little beings completely dependent on me, which is scary because we lose the freedom and lightness characteristic of youth. But, and it is also a real strength: we understand that we do things for ourselves. We feel useful. It removes the feeling of emptiness from existence that was strong in me before.
How do you combine your role as a mother with 5 children and your responsibilities as a business manager?
Gaëlle This is crazy! This question is never asked to the men who run a business or even to any man. As if the responsibility for organizing the family was only borne by women. Unfortunately, it is a reality in many countries and there is still work to achieve parity on this and many others.
Every woman, mother and active, has a list that loops in her head and keeps on renewing. It is the famous and exhausting mental charge, a term that only entered the Little Illustrated Larousse in 2020...
I'm, like all these women, often overworked, with my work/house list running in loop. In addition to this, guilt, a feeling of how feminine, is not present enough for my children. But over time, I learned that it is not necessarily the number of hours spent with them that counts but the quality of the moments shared with them.
What do you want to pass on to your children?
Gaëlle They are raised in the city, in Paris, and I find it a little sad. I want to convey to them the taste of nature, gardening, the names of flowers, trees... I try to help them feel the moment, the taste of little things that make life salt. They often imitate me by saying, "We're not here?"
There are also essential values such as respect for others and the sense of work without which nothing is really possible. To my daughters, I want to convey the sense of beauty to myself. That they accept themselves as they are and use makeup to feel stronger. And boys, I would like them to become righteous men, able to share tasks fairly at home.
But what I want them to keep above all else is:
