BEFORE we could afford Pond’s or Olay or L’Oreal, my friends and I subsisted on Chin Chun Su, a lightening face cream that was as popular as Ly-Na, Mena and San-Ing in the early 1990s. The product was effective, giving our faces (sometimes elbows and knees) “kutis-artista” realness.
Now that the aforementioned Western-brand beauty creams are getting too expensive, we’ve resorted to homegrown products that understand our Pinoy complexion more keenly and, therefore, are more suitable to our skin-care concerns.
The concern, initially, was how to attain fairer skin and then how to even out the dark spots for a lighter tone. In between was the determination to defy the onset of aging. Then we wanted skin that glistens like a movie star’s, but on a fan girl’s budget, of course. While its true that Unilever and Procter & Gamble still dominate the beauty market, one company posing a challenge is Bevi, the makers of Kojie San soap.
The Laguna-based manufacturer recently celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila. Amid Japanese-themed fashion parades and song numbers, Bevi’s bigwigs came out to launch its new, game-changing offerings.
BELLIC PEEL & GLOW
WHILE other brands are still focused on how best to whiten our kayumanggi skin, Bevi has moved forward with its latest innovation.
“With our 10 years of extensive research, of searching for the best products, of listening to consumers, we are ready to go to the next level,” says Frances Favila, Bellic brand manager. “But how do we do this? First, we focused on what we have, on the strengths and resources that we can hone, and what we have is 10 years of perfecting skin lightening.”
Then Bevi found a gap in the market that it needed to address. “For years, the Philippines has been fascinated with getting light skin, while Japan, Korea and Hong Kong have long moved on to skin-brightening technology, aiming for skin that is not just white, but also one that glows,” Favila explains.
So Bevi formulated Bellic, a skin-brightening brand that uses powerful ingredients, such as glycolic, salycilic acid and Bellis Perrenis skin-care actives, that exfoliate gently, peeling the skin to allow for healthy bright skin to shine through.
But doesn’t peeling mean redness, irritation, uneven peeling and skin damage? “Our extensive research has created an exfoliating product that addresses these concerns. We would like to let consumers know that peeling is not the enemy but a necessity to achieving bright skin,” Favila assures. “We would love for you to embrace this skin-brightening innovation, that Bellic is the product that lets you bloom into a bright and beautiful you.”
KOJIE SAN DREAMWHITE AND KOJIESAN MEN
Kojie san soap, according to Marketing Head Tricia Gregorio, is sold every two seconds across the country. It has also won numerous awards from Watsons and SM.
“We never promised that Kojie San could provide instant or intense whitening because we know that duration and degree of the lightening effect varies from one person to another,” Gregorio says. “But what we know is that the key to effective whitening is in the ingredients, which are high-grade Kojic Acid and 95-percent virgin coconut oil, a powerful combination that will bring out your natural lightest skin tone.”
The DreamWhite category not only gets a repackaging, but also adds new products to its anti-aging lineup: night cream, blemish correcting cream, and mist and mask.
Men shouldn’t feel left out, however, as the grooming and hygiene range includes a face and body soap, body wash, face wash, deo spray and deo roll-on. Unlike the women’s lines, which don’t have celebrity ambassadors to propel their sales, Kojiesan Men enlisted “interesting-looking” funny TV hosts Bogart the Explorer and Wil Dasovich for its “Saktong Pogi” campaign.
KOJIE SAN’S UNSTOPPABLE POWER PLAYER
Jazz Burila, Bevi’s CEO, is painfully shy and doesn’t grant interviews. But it’s clear when she sashayed onstage to give her speech that she is a woman of tremendous determination. After toiling for 15 years for a multinational company, Burila left the corporate world and ventured into business on her won. She sold fashion slippers in Divisoria until she discovered an orange bar of soap in Binondo that she reformulated into what is now Kojie San.
“This year we have aggressively expanded our facilities in San Pablo, Laguna, in preparation for servicing other clients and restructuring our sales and marketing operations all over the region. As we move to our next target, we are less scared and more confident because we know that together we will attain our common goal,” Burila said during the anniversary celebration, addressing the hundreds that comprise her sales force and suppliers.
To deafening applause, the inspiring entrepreneur concluded: “Today, after 10 years of existence, I humbly accept the challenge, one that reminds me of how combined hard work and uniqueness paid off, one that will keep me on my toes not only for continuity but more of creating a legacy of being unbeaten.”