The Future of Beauty: Luca Sabbatini Of Elchim On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Beauty Industry

When you are the son of the President, you have to show your personal value even more than following a normal career from the bottom. I started to be and behave differently when I learned that success is based on never-stopping to improve what you are already doing and listening to the other people that have more experience than you. Certainly, this also came along with age and maturity.

As a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years, I had the pleasure of interviewing Luca Sabbatini, CEO Elchim. When it comes to working in the salon, your tools are everything. Having the right tools can make or break a look, and are key to making your life easier. Enter the Elchim 2001 Dryer, a blowdryer that guarantees 2,000 working hours with five temperature settings, high-pressure air compression technology and has been named the best dryer by Life & Style, Best Beauty Buy by InStyle USA and is a two-time winner of the prestigious “Allure Best” award.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’m literally born in the beauty industry. My grandmother and my grand uncle founded Elchim in 1945, my father joined the family business in the late ’70s, and I have been attending beauty B to B show, Cosmoprof and other beauty shows since I was only a 14 year old and at that age I sold my first Elchim’s hairstyling tools container! I grew up with “bread and hairstyling tools” and from that came my passion for this incredible industry.

Before joining my family full time in running Elchim, I had first to finish University and then worked some years in a primary European multinational Company so I was able to understand the basics of business and received extra managerial skills in finance and project management.

In 2007 I finally entered in the Company as a full time job and started the long business development phase which took Elchim to the next level and we were able to increase the worldwide presence of the brand!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

In over 13 years at Elchim I might be able to write a full book on the things we have done, people I have met and strange and interesting things that have happened.

Initially my parents didn’t want me to work for the family Company. My father, in particular, never insisted, and he was always telling me to follow my paths on the base of what I had the love for.

However, 2007 one day I told my father, “What about if I joined Elchim”, I saw a great pride in his eyes and I still remember the first day early September when sitting around a table he said, “You are the fresh new wind and the future is in you. I’ll support financially your dreams and invest in the new products you have in mind!” From that time on we started a revolutionary time in Elchim with a new team, new ideas, novelties in design and image and a lot of excitement for the entire team… !

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

When you are the son of the President, you have to show your personal value even more than following a normal career from the bottom. I started to be and behave differently when I learned that success is based on never-stopping to improve what you are already doing and listening to the other people that have more experience than you. Certainly, this also came along with age and maturity.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

The first thank you goes to my grandparents that were looking already at me as the future of Elchim, then my father who gave to me a lot of responsibility since the very beginning and relied on my new ideas and innovations and last but not least I thank God for this incredible gift and the responsibility to create wealth not only for my family but for several families working in and around Elchim.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?

Well, please don’t ask me to disclose important novelties that are coming up. Certainly, we are going in the direction of the hair well-being. Today is the time of thinking not only to make faster and powerful dryers or irons, it’s time to look at the integrity of hair.

Technology is nothing if does not help people to have more beautiful and healthier hair!

In order to achieve this goals blowout and styling become beauty and healthy rituals.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Some people and some markets aren’t oriented to hair well-being yet and we know some distributors still focus their distribution strategies on low prices and apparent performance which at the very end damage the hair cuticles.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?

In three things: art behind hairstyling techniques and relevant technologies, the research of continuous improvement, the desire to make people happy. At the end of the day, a perfect hairstyling makes people feel better and happier!

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?

Some inventions even in the hairstyling tools are simply result of a good marketing. I hope these times, especially after Covid emergency, will make innovations more concrete and people will learn what is really useful and healthy for their hair.

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

“To feel beautiful” is a state of mind so first of all if you don’t feel beautiful you have to probably change your life and mind. Positive thinking, being helpful to the other people and finally, if you have the chance, dress, eat and have a hairstyling that make you happy and comfortable.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I think in life it is very important to understand the concept of sharing.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

This is not my quote but is in my heart since my first day at Elchim:” If you keep doing the same thing, you’ll get the same results.”

Things are changing rapidly in today’s life and it is very important in business to self adapt to the different environment and understand in advance the future scenarios.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow Elchim and all the innovations awe are planning to uncover in 2020 @elchim_usa_official

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.