When Lydia Sarfati relocated her beloved seaweed-based Repêchage model from Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to Secaucus, NJ, she couldn’t sleep. In the present day, the revered aesthetician, entrepreneur and all-around skin-care icon says it was “the best decision of her life.”
Household First
Sarfati launched Repêchage in 1980 on the Pierre Resort to round 150 salon house owners. Whereas her merchandise and protocols from her authentic skincare and spa have been extremely fashionable, she credit her husband, David, to giving her a wanted “push” to begin the road. “What we were doing was very popular, but I didn’t know how we could teach others to do the same and make it consistent,” remembers Sarfati. “David just kept saying: ‘Why not? Why don’t we try to sell what you know?’”
And offered they did. “It all became very popular, very quickly,” Sarfati says. “The Four-Layer facial grew wildly popular, and back then, it was the most expensive facial you could have. We launched with the price of $65, which everyone told me would never work, but everyone wanted it. Here we are, 45 years later, and everyone still wants it!”
Success apart, Sarfati pegs 1996 because the 12 months issues modified. “The company was flourishing, and I was very much a Manhattanite. We lived and worked there; I would get a rash when I left!” she jokes. “Then, my landlord called and said he was raising our rent from $7 a square foot to $45. By then, we had 15,000 square feet. I didn’t know what to do.”
Transferring Components
Whereas the skin-care gross sales have been stable, Sarfati says subsequent steps for the corporate’s development can once more be credited to her husband’s unwavering help and good perspective. “When the rent went up, David came to the rescue and said: ‘Enough with paying rent! Let’s buy a building.’”
However the place do you purchase a constructing in New York? “We were looking for a while, and then we started looking for a property and decided on Secaucus, because it’s close to Manhattan,” remembers Sarfati. “At that time, there were no trains going out there, but there were some buses, and we would run vans for our employees. At first, I was not very happy…I felt like I left Fifth Avenue for the middle of the desert. But all these years later, I can honestly say it was the best decision I ever made. We’ve made a beautiful facility. It is paradise.”
Paradise Island
In the present day, the Sarfatis nonetheless cross state traces to get to their 50,000-square-foot headquarters and coaching facility, the place the model impressively develops and manufactures each single product.
The success is just not misplaced on Lydia, who shares she usually feels overwhelmed driving as much as work and seeing not solely the workplace, however the locations the place her merchandise are being shipped: “Of course, you have dreams, and you have goals, and you have desires in business. My dad always said: ‘You plan and God is laughing.’ In this instance, we’ve planned and we are laughing because our goals and our objectives were met.”
Enterprise apart, she is strict about holding household and work separate. (Along with David, their daughter Shiri has been with the corporate for 20-plus years). “I realized long ago that, in order to live together, sleep together and work together, you have to set boundaries, and we’ve done a good job at that,” she says. “My other rule is that when we get together socially, we don’t talk about business. If we did, we’d have no life!”
