Mario Badescu occupies a niche unlike almost any other in the skin care market.
It’s a legacy brand, founded in the 1960s by the Romanian immigrant whose name it bears, and its lengthy list of celebrity clients includes Martha Stewart, Heidi Klum and Jennifer Aniston. But here, legacy is not a euphemism for luxury; they don’t use “prestige” to mean “pricey.” Mario Badescu is also an affordable, family-owned brand. And that’s largely thanks to the vision of its president, Joey Cabasso, who’s been with the company for more than a quarter century.
It was Cabasso’s father who bought the skin care company in the 1980s, but it was the younger Cabasso who steered its growth from a little two-bedroom apartment in New York City to a global brand you’ll find in more than 70 countries today. He still remembers getting their first retail account with the department store Henri Bendel, back when the products were made in the salon’s basement.
“We used to pack the products. I used to put it in my trunk, unload it into Henri Bendel’s, stock the shelves and work the counter. I really started from when the business was nothing,” Cabasso says. “I remember, my car—you know when you put too many boxes and it’ll be down to the ground? That’s how my car was.”
From delivery boy to successful retailer
Cabasso’s time as delivery boy and shopkeeper paid off. Before long, intrigued by the masks and moisturizers that were doing so well at Henri Bendel, bigger retailers like Nordstrom started reaching out.
“Ulta came to us, I think it was maybe 17 years ago, 18 years ago. They came to us, and we were like, ‘Who are these people, Ulta?’” Cabasso chuckles.
At the time, he recalls, Ulta Beauty had maybe 70 stores; now, they have more than 1,300, in which Mario Badescu is a big leader.
Mario Badescu grew alongside its retailers. “And we grew with our customers,” he adds. “You could take someone like Martha Stewart—she came in the ’70s; she’s still coming—there are thousands and thousands of customers, tens of thousands, that are the same.”
In some ways, they’ve been lucky. Having Stewart as an early champion, for example, gave them crucial exposure in her Martha by Mail catalog.
That growth is due to the chances Cabasso was brave enough to take—like signing on at Ulta, a small chain they weren’t sure about in those initial days. Cabasso credits the fact that they’re a family-run business for making leaps like that, jumps that might have scared off a bigger business with the resources (and experience) to say no to such an uncertain proposition.
“We weren’t that corporate company that really looked into companies and really cared that much,” Cabasso says. “We want our products to be out there; we want people to have our products.”
This is the ethos that drives Cabasso’s leadership of Mario Badescu even today. When it comes down to it, he wants to see their eye creams and exfoliants in as many medicine cabinets and makeup bags as possible. Inclusivity and affordability are the name of the game.
Partnering with Walmart
Take the brand’s March 2022 entry into BeautySpaceNK, a new retailer of beauty products located inside Walmart. “That was a big jump for us,” Cabasso admits. “But when we saw Ulta went into Target, and Sephora went into Kohl’s, we said, ‘OK, we’re a prestige company. But our prestige company is very affordable. And our price point is a mass price point.’ And that’s how we always were.”
Of course, it can be challenging to balance the legacy and history of a company that’s been around for nearly 60 years with the changing times. “We try to keep everything like Mario Badescu left it,” Cabasso says. “Yes, we come out with new products, but we don’t just throw products out on the market. We really are very involved.” It’s not uncommon for employees to take new products home to try themselves; Cabasso is always bringing in-development items home for his wife to try out.
Cabasso is modest about his success at the helm of Mario Badescu, and his advice for other leaders is in line with that. “Stay very humble. Very, very humble,” he says. “Work with the employees like you’re on the same level as them. We are a family business; we like for each and every employee… to feel they’re family.”
“And don’t be embarrassed to tell your story,” he adds. Cabasso knows that Mario Badescu’s status as a family-operated skin care brand makes it something of an anomaly in the space, and that’s a fact that fills him with pride. Even when, or maybe especially when, that fact surprises influencers who come by Mario Badescu’s New Jersey production facility and get a tour from Cabasso’s 85-year-old father, who still regularly comes into the office.
Keeping prices affordable
Ultimately, as much as things have changed since Cabasso started filling up his trunk and making deliveries for Mario Badescu, an awful lot has stayed the same. Many of the formulas are the same ones developed by Badescu back in the ’60s and ’70s. The label is as traditional and simple as they come, each bottle bearing a simple line of text—“Mario Badescu Skin Care, Since 1967”—above its emerald green logo. And there’s the price point: $8 facial sprays, $12 cleansers, $18 masks.
“I think we’re busy because of the price point,” Cabasso says. “Nowadays, price point is huge. And I see a lot of skin care companies that are suffering because they have creams that are $80, $100, $200 and they’re not selling it like they were.”
Cabasso says they have no plans to change. With a customer retention rate that hovers around 63%, why would you?
“Even though we’re not making as much as these other companies, we’re keeping that customer for a lifetime,” Cabasso continues. “We’re not out to make a killing; we’re out to keep the customer happy and keep them forever.”
Photo courtesy of Joey Cabasso
