The brand took five years to create and is launching on its website with three bronzer-highlighter duos.The brand took five years to create and is launching on its website with three bronzer-highlighter duos.
Olivia Jade Giannulli has revealed her latest venture.
The creator is launching her beauty brand O.Piccola on Tuesday. The self-funded brand is debuting with its Bronze & Glow Balm, a dual-sided bronzer and highlighter stick, which launches Tuesday in three shades. It will debut on the company’s website for $47.99.
For Giannulli, who has nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube and more than 1 million on Instagram, the path to launch took five years and a few detours.
“I started working with a manufacturer in California and we were doing a rendition of the palette I did with Sephora Collection,” Giannulli said. “We tried all these different ways, I ultimately wanted to change the formula, and I wound up being introduced to a manufacturer in South Korea.”
From there, the goal for the products changed, and she landed on the Bronze & Glow Balm. It’s a shift for Giannulli, who aside from the aforementioned Sephora capsule collection had yet to launch her own products.
“I was 18, and I had a whole team of people at Sephora who were incredible professionals and knew what they were doing. I got to be on the creative front of that, and the whole aspect of actually creating the formula was on me,” she said. “It was a huge success, we sold out twice. But I didn’t know about the other side of the business — the back-end, third-party logistics, how to get your product.”
The venture is wholly self-funded, and Giannulli is currently O.Piccola’s only employee. “Piccola,” which means “little” in Italian, is meant to capture her own less-is-more ethos.
The products themselves are meant to be creamy in texture and offer hydration, and Giannulli is adding one lighter and one deeper shade.
“I definitely want to stick with skin in the beginning — not necessarily skin care but making sure all the makeup products are suitable for sensitive skin and have the best ingredients,” Giannulli said. “The first thing out the gate is going to be expanding the shade range.”
The marketing will be digital-first, Giannulli said. “I’m not really asking anyone to post but I’m so confident in the product that I think if I get it to enough people, they’ll love it and it will become a part of their routine. And for my celebrity and influencer friends, hopefully [it will be] natural for them to share,” she said. “I don’t have a super strict marketing plan in mind. I filmed the whole process of me making the product in [South] Korea, which we’re editing now for YouTube.”
When the venture gains steam, Giannulli is thinking about paid media, but is focused on launching for the foreseeable future.
“I love YouTube, I love social media, and I’m so grateful it has somehow turned into a job all these years later,” she said. “But I always knew I wanted to create my own company, so I would give all the credit to Sephora for that. That was the moment, choosing all the colors, that I was like, ‘I want to do this forever.’”
