IT USED to be said that if you wanted great hair, you should brush it with 100 strokes a day. But in our fast-paced, fragmented digital age does anyone have time for this now?
Doing some research (i.e. googling), the consensus is that this practice is very good for the strength, appearance, shine and health of your hair. It is also agreed that to truly benefit from it, you need to use a good brush. And a good brush is not a plastic one.
This is where the French company Altesse Studio comes in. Based in Picardie, the traditional heartland of French brush-making, Altesse Studio, originally called Maison Fournival Altesse, has been making hairbrushes since 1875. In its early days, Maison Fournival Altesse also made toothbrushes fashioned from the femur bone of ox and horses and even ivory.
A selection of Altesse Studio Beaute & Prestige brushes
In 2005, Jacques Gaillard, a former manager of La Brosse et Dupont (another French hairbrush company), acquired Altesse Studio, which had gone into receivership. In doing so he safeguarded the last French hairbrush manufacturer and its ancestral know-how.
The Altesse Studio brush factory is still located in Thérain valley, Picardie, and its exceptional manufacturing and craft tradition has been recognised by the French government with the Maison being awarded a prestigious “Living Heritage Company” label.
This award acknowledges the excellence of French savoir-faire and, in the case of Altesse Studio, its traditional brush-making expertise.
Just over a decade from Jacques Gaillard’s acquisition of the company, in 2016, his stepdaughter, Julia Tissot-Gaillard, took over as CEO. And so, she became the sixth generation of brush makers to run and own Altesse Studio, which continues this unique tradition and savoir-faire. Meanwhile, Tissot-Gaillard is developing the brand by focusing on preserving and promoting the existing craft and excellence of hairbrush production while embracing innovation.
Julia Tissot-Gaillard, CEO of Altesse Studio
Altesse Studio is one of the few remaining brush makers in France. What are you doing to sustain, preserve and develop the art of brush making?
As I repeat regularly to our team, we manufacture products that require a lot of manual labour and we produce 100 per cent in France, therefore our products are more expensive than others. This means, the only way to continue selling products is to produce better products than others.
We have no other choice to continue existing. This means two things – selecting and investing in the best raw materials available, and ensuring internal training and quality is at its best to continue manufacturing the best products possible.
Altesse Studio Beaute Repair & Shine brush £270
Are there any innovations that you are interested in, or that the company is embracing?
Yes, we keep on reflecting and pushing our ancestral know-how to the limit, as well as looking out for products in the market we feel could be done better and for which we could bring a real added value.
This is the case with the new product – a body brush – we launched mid-May. It’s a brush, but not a hairbrush, that we’ve developed as we realised none of the existing brushes offered a quality brushing that delivered what it was supposed to. This is the same thing with the brushes we’ll launch at the end of the year for professionals.
How important is sustainability for Altesse?
It has always been in our DNA, way before it became “trendy”. We’ve always manufactured sustainable products, with sustainable materials – products that last for decades. We collect the wooden chips from our production and give them to a local farm that uses it in its orchard, so wood returns to earth. All the packaging we’ve developed these past years are made with recycled materials and/or are 100 per cent recyclable.
What traditional techniques does Altesse use in making the brushes and are they hard to learn?
We are one of the last companies in the world to know how to manufacture [hair brushing and combing] products entirely by hand – just as we used to do it in the 19th century. These are products that we number and that are repairable for life.
For the rest of our products, a lot of manual work is necessary but the tufting is done by a machine. However, in this case as well, criteria of excellence must be respected and these come from traditional techniques. The tufts and the height of the bristles in each tuft are carefully studied to ensure the best hair penetration. It takes one to three years to master a specific manufacturing step.
An Altesse Studio brush on olive wood
What is the best way to use an Altesse brush to get the maximum results from it?
For a detangling brush, always start by detangling your ends and then brush from roots to ends. For a care brush, follow the 100-stroke routine which will allow your scalp to be stimulated, cleaned, sebum distributed from roots to ends to naturally nourish and protect your hair, as well as smooth it and make it shine.
An Altesse brush can be passed on through the generations – how should it be looked after?
If you clean it once a week properly, it will last for decades. The cleaning process is very easy and quick. Put some lukewarm water in a sink, add a drop of shampoo, lather up. Pass the bristles though the soapy water for 10 seconds, not the handle. Rinse with clear water and let it dry naturally on its bristles. If you have an olive wood handle, oil it from time to time with some vegetable oil.
Altesse Studio Prestige brush £395
What challenges have you faced in taking over and running a brand with such a rich heritage in what could be seen as a challenging market?
When I took over, the company had been losing money for 10 years, mostly because we didn’t know how much it cost us to produce a brush, which implied that we used to sell below our price cost. After establishing the real price cost of each product, I’ve met with our clients and explained I had to dramatically increase prices to keep the company alive.
Thankfully, they understood and kept on ordering. Now that we are in a better position, we have invested in communication to educate or re-educate consumers on what is a good hairbrush and the amazing and numerous benefits it can bring to hair, and, therefore, how important it is to invest in a high-quality hairbrush.
What have been the high points of your job?
Bringing the company back to black numbers and ensuring this amazing know-how and these beautiful and useful products can still exist 150 years later. Also, enabling employees to work in a company with a positive future and a caring management.
Vitalis Body Brush retails at £160
Are there any other companies or company owners that inspire you in your role?
My stepfather has been fundamental in my career and in my way of doing business. I wouldn’t be the same person, and I wouldn’t have succeeded this way without him in my life.
You have just launched the Vitalis Body Brush with lymphatic drainage specialist Rebecca Trévalinet, co-founder of the Methode Trévalinet. Can you tell me something about how this came about?
Despite our century-old savoir-faire, we continuously analyse trends to launch beauty tools that bring real benefits to consumers, and this is why we’ve recently launched our Vitalis Body Brush with lymphatic drainage specialist Rebecca Trévalinet that is dedicated to aid lymphatic health.
What are your future plans for Altesse?
They are so many. Our goal is to become the LVMH of hairbrushes.
by Caroline Simpson
Altesse Studio Hair Brushes retail from £210, and Body Brushes retail at £180