Having grown up surrounded by paper, Michelle Lim-Gankee, marketing director of the Sterling Paper Group of Companies, knows how to talk paper.
“If you ask me about a notebook, I know how many GSM the paper is—thickness—from cover to cover of the notebook. I know the raw materials,” she says.
But makeup? Not so much. “It’s really new to us, it’s new education,” she says with a laugh. She and her sisters are learning fast about the business of beauty, though. Recently, Michelle, together with sisters Pauline Lim and Hazel Lim-Lee Hok, launched Inglot Cosmetics here in the Philippines.
The Polish brand is popular among professional makeup artists and beauty junkies the world over for its wide array of highly pigmented makeup. The brand was started 30 years ago by chemist Wojtek Inglot whose chief goal in creating his products was to look for quality ingredients while keeping the products affordable.
‘Freedom system’
Today the brand is best known for its “Freedom System,” where women can get flat, empty magnetic palettes and fill them with their own color choices. The eye shadows, lip colors, powders and blush that can fit into the palettes come in different shades and finishes. The prices are very affordable, too. The prices for the color pans for the pigment system range from P375-P575. The customizable palettes are compact and perfect to bring around when traveling.
Inglot is also known for their breathable nail polish, a hit among Muslim women because its permeability to water and air allows them to wear nail polish even during their pre-prayer
even during pre-prayer rituals.
rituals, where all parts of the hands and arms must come in contact with water.
Michelle was aware that competition in the beauty industry is fierce and that venturing into makeup was a risk. “This is the first company that’s not part of the Sterling group; it’s really just us sisters. It’s a risk, but we wanted to show our dad what we learned growing up around the business. He told us to go with our passions, so that’s what we did,” she explains.
The sisters also considered venturing into food, traveling to Hong Kong with the intention of bringing in Café de Coral, and Japan with their Hokkaido ice cream, but ultimately the lure of color won out. “Makeup feels like play,” adds Michelle.
Paper pedigree
Despite their paper pedigree, getting makeup and fashion brands to say yes was difficult at first. “They wanted to know what other brands we had, they didn’t care about our business background, just our brand portfolio,” shares Michelle. Inglot’s popularity brought them all the way to Poland, where they talked to the brand owner personally and underwent intense product training and immersion in the factory. “We just really need to introduce Inglot to the Philippines. It’s really easy to sell. Like Sterling and rice (they are also behind Doña Maria Japonica Rice), we focus on quality products.”
Their dad, paper tycoon Henry Lim, visited the store and was happy with the results, save one.
“He saw us here, counting everything and making sure everything was in their drawers. We were doing inventory until 2 or 3 a.m. He was very supportive, but would get mad because we’d go home so late!” Michelle says with a smile.
The first store opened at Glorietta 5 this week, and they plan to open one store every year. An online store is already in the works, too. “We want everyone from the Philippines to experience Inglot wherever they are, so we’re setting up an online store and we’ll ship everything to your doorstep,” says Michelle.
Inglot is located at G/F, Glorietta 5. Visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/inglotphilippines.