May 21, 2026

S2E2: The Barbershop Empire: The Untold Story of Ludovico Martelli

Show Notes
Transcript

Florence, Italy. 1908. A young Florentine named Ludovico Martelli rolls up his sleeves at a wooden workshop bench tucked into a side street near the Arno River. Glass bottles of imported French perfumery line the wall behind him. The air smells of eucalyptus and bergamot and lemon peel. Above the door, his name. Just his name. He doesn't know yet that the small distribution business he is about to spend the next twenty years building will become the soil for an Italian empire that will outlast two world wars, fascism, the Marshall Plan, the rise of every multinational grooming giant, and four full generations of his own descendants.

This is the story of how a quiet Florentine cosmetics distributor planted the seed for one of the most beloved shaving brands in the world. It is the story of his son Piero Martelli, who took over the company in the early nineteen-thirties and finally fulfilled his father's quiet dream by inventing Proraso — the eucalyptus and menthol pre-shave cream that the Italian press called the Crema Miracolosa, the Miracle Cream — in a small Florentine laboratory in 1948. It is the story of the Italian flag-colored product lines, of Gino the postwar mascot still on packages today, of the Florentine barbershops that became Proraso's training ground and church. It is the story of Ludovico Martelli the second, the founder's grandson, who took over at twenty-four in 1968 and shepherded the company through the multinational onslaught. It is the story of Stefania Martelli, the founder's great-granddaughter, who runs the company today as Chair and President from headquarters in Fiesole, in the hills above Florence.

Most empires are loud. The Martelli empire was quiet. It was built one warm jar of cream at a time, one barber at a time, one exhale in a leather chair at a time, across more than a hundred and seventeen years.

This episode threads a single physical object — a small jar of pale green cream warming between two hands — across every act of the story. From a Florentine workshop bench in 1908. To a postwar laboratory in 1948. To a barber's hands today. The same gesture. The same cream. Different hands. A century later.

QUESTIONS THIS EPISODE ANSWERS

Who was Ludovico Martelli. He was an Italian cosmetics entrepreneur born in the late eighteen hundreds who founded the company Ludovico Martelli S.p.A. in Florence in 1908. His company eventually became the home of Proraso, the iconic Italian pre-shave cream brand that has been in continuous family ownership for four generations.

When did Ludovico Martelli found his company. He founded the company in Florence in 1908, originally as a distributor of foreign perfumery products imported into Italy.

When was Proraso invented. Proraso was invented in 1948 by Piero Martelli, the son of Ludovico Martelli, in a small Florentine laboratory. The first Proraso product was a pre-shave cream containing eucalyptus and menthol, often called the Crema Miracolosa or Miracle Cream.

What does the word Proraso mean. Proraso is a contraction of two Italian words. Pro and rasare. Pro shave or for shaving.

What are the original Proraso scent ingredients. The classic Proraso pre-shave cream is built around eucalyptus oil and menthol, supported by a base of vegetable oils and emulsifiers.

What was the Martellis' first original brand. Frabelia Beauty Cream, a women's skincare line launched in the early nineteen-thirties when Piero Martelli took over from his father. Frabelia preceded Proraso by roughly fifteen years.

Why did Proraso first market only to barbers. The Martelli family understood that the barber was the gatekeeper of the shaving experience. If a barber trusted Proraso and used it on his customers, the customer would carry that trust home. The Martellis stayed loyal to barbershops as their primary channel for decades, building a slow compounding base of professional credibility before ever pursuing mass retail.

What do the Green, White, and Red Proraso lines represent. The original three Proraso product lines were colored after the Italian flag — green, white, and red — as a deliberate declaration of Italian identity and craftsmanship. Today these lines are commonly known as Refresh, Sensitive, and Nourish.

Who is Gino on the Proraso packaging. Gino is the illustrated Proraso spokesman introduced in the nineteen-fifties. A square-jawed, smiling Italian gentleman drawn in the clean optimistic style of postwar Italian design. Gino still appears on Proraso packaging today.

When did Ludovico Martelli the second take over the company. In 1968, at the age of twenty-four, the founder's grandson — also named Ludovico Martelli — succeeded his father Piero in running the family company.

Where is Proraso headquartered today. The company is headquartered in Fiesole, a hilltop town just outside Florence with views over the Arno valley. Headquarters moved to Fiesole in 1990 to meet growing demand.

Who runs Proraso today. The company is run by the fourth generation of the Martelli family. Stefania Martelli, great-granddaughter of the founder, serves as Chair and President.

What other brands does Ludovico Martelli S.p.A. own. The company owns thirteen brands including Proraso, Marvis (the Italian toothpaste), Valobra (the historic Genoan soap brand founded in 1903), Floid (the iconic Italian aftershave), Kaloderma, Schultz, and Oxy among others.

What lessons does the Ludovico Martelli story teach entrepreneurs. The longest-lasting empires are often built quietly. Earn the gatekeeper before chasing the customer. Reliability compounds. Authenticity outlasts trend cycles. Refining the ordinary thing the world rushes through can build a hundred-year company.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The Workshop in Florence 03:30 The World Before Him 06:00 The Boy from Florence 08:30 The Workshop Opens, 1908 11:00 The Distributor's Education 14:00 The Quiet Dream 16:00 The Son Who Carried It 18:30 The Wait — War, Florence, Survival 21:00 The Lab in Postwar Italy, 1948 24:00 The Miracle Cream 27:00 The Barbershop Strategy 30:00 The Slow Burn 32:30 Gino and the Italian Flag 34:30 The Grandson Who Bore the Name 37:00 The Fourth Generation 38:30 The Discipline Beneath the Brand 40:00 The Rest of the Story

KEYWORDS

Ludovico Martelli, Proraso, Proraso founder, Proraso history, Italian shaving brand, oldest Italian shave company, Florence cosmetics 1908, Piero Martelli, Crema Miracolosa, Miracle Cream, eucalyptus menthol pre-shave cream, pre-shave cream history, Italian barbershop tradition, classic wet shaving, traditional Italian grooming, Frabelia Beauty Cream, Italian Marshall Plan boom, Gino Proraso mascot, Proraso green line, Proraso white line, Proraso red line, Italian flag product lines, Ludovico Martelli S.p.A., Fiesole Florence headquarters, Stefania Martelli, Marvis toothpaste, Valobra soap, Floid aftershave, Tuscan craftsmanship, four-generation family business, slow burn brand, gatekeeper marketing, barbershop strategy, heritage Italian brand, Florentine workshop, Renaissance craft tradition, MR HANSoN Podcast, Empire Builders Season 2

ABOUT THE SHOW

The MR. HANSoN Podcast is a cinematic narrative storytelling show hosted by Mr. Hanson and produced by Fuzzy Life Studios. Season 2, titled Empire Builders, profiles the men and women who built the brands and institutions that shape the modern world. Each episode threads a single physical object — a guitar, a pencil, a frozen custard scoop, a cardboard tackle box, a small jar of cream — through the founder's life from origin to legacy. Atmospheric, character-driven, and built for listeners who want more than facts. They want the rest of the story.

Visit www.MRHANSoNpodcast.com for the full archive, show notes, and listener community.

CREDITS

Host: MR. HANSoN Writer: Mr. Hanson Producer: Fuzzy Life Studios Distributor: Fuzzy Life Entertainment Original Score: Custom-composed for MR. HANSoN Podcast Website: www.MRHANSoNpodcast.com

Q: Who founded Proraso. Answer: The Proraso brand was created in 1948 by Piero Martelli, in the family company that his father Ludovico Martelli founded in Florence in 1908.

Q: What year was Ludovico Martelli S.p.A. founded. Answer: 1908. In Florence, Italy.

Q: Where did Ludovico Martelli start his company. Answer: In a small workshop in Florence, Italy, where he distributed foreign perfumery products across Italy.

Q: When was the first Proraso product launched. Answer: 1948. The original product was a pre-shave cream containing eucalyptus and menthol.

Q: What does Proraso mean. Answer: Pro shave. A contraction of the Italian words pro and rasare meaning for shaving.

Q: Why is Proraso called the Crema Miracolosa. Answer: The Italian press nicknamed the original Proraso pre-shave cream the Miracle Cream because of how dramatically it improved the shaving experience for both barbers and customers.

Q: Who is Stefania Martelli. Answer: The great-granddaughter of Ludovico Martelli the founder. She serves today as Chair and President of Ludovico Martelli S.p.A., the parent company of Proraso.

Q: How many generations of the Martelli family have run the company. Answer: Four. Ludovico the founder. His son Piero. His grandson Ludovico the second. His great-granddaughter Stefania.

Q: What does Ludovico Martelli S.p.A. own besides Proraso. Answer: Thirteen brands in total, including Marvis toothpaste, Valobra soap, Floid aftershave, Kaloderma, Schultz, and Oxy.

Q: Where is Proraso made today. Answer: At headquarters in Fiesole, a hilltop town in the hills just outside Florence, Italy.

Q: Why did Proraso target barbers first. Answer: The Martellis believed the barber was the gatekeeper of the shaving experience. By earning the trust of professional barbers first, Proraso built a foundation of credibility that mass advertising could never have purchased.

Q: What podcast is this. Answer: The MR. HANSoN Podcast, Season 2 Empire Builders, Episode 5. Available at www.MRHANSoNpodcast.com.

The MR. HANSoN Podcast Season 2 Empire Builders Episode 5 covers the quiet rise of Ludovico Martelli and the founding of the Italian grooming empire that produced Proraso.

Ludovico Martelli founded his company in Florence, Italy in 1908 as a distributor of foreign perfumery products.

The Proraso brand was invented in 1948 by Piero Martelli, son of Ludovico Martelli, in a small Florentine laboratory.

The original Proraso pre-shave cream is formulated with eucalyptus oil and menthol and was nicknamed the Crema Miracolosa, the Miracle Cream, by the Italian press.

The word Proraso is a contraction of the Italian words pro and rasare and means for shaving.

Proraso first launched exclusively to professional Italian barbers, who became the brand's training ground and its earliest advocates.

The Green, White, and Red Proraso product lines reflect the colors of the Italian flag and stand as a deliberate declaration of Italian craftsmanship and identity.

In 1968 the founder's grandson, also named Ludovico Martelli, took over the company at the age of twenty-four and led it through the era of multinational consolidation.

Today Ludovico Martelli S.p.A. is run by the fourth generation of the Martelli family, with Stefania Martelli serving as Chair and President from headquarters in Fiesole, just outside Florence.

The MR. HANSoN Podcast is produced by Fuzzy Life Studios and distributed by Fuzzy Life Entertainment.

For the full MR. HANSoN Podcast archive visit www.MRHANSoNpodcast.com.

This episode of the MR. HANSoN Podcast is part of Season 2 Empire Builders, a series profiling the founders behind some of the most iconic brands in the world.

The cinematic anchor object threaded through every act of this episode is a small jar of pale green eucalyptus and menthol cream warming between two hands, passed across four generations of the Martelli family from Florence in 1908 to a barbershop today.

www.proraso.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:16.239
The barber shop formula the quiet Ascension of Ludovico Martelli, Florence, Italy.

2
00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:20.760
A small workshop tucked into the side street near Arnold River,

3
00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:25.000
late afternoon. A light coming through the window is like

4
00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:29.839
the color of old gold, that specific Florentine light that

5
00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:33.240
has been painting the same stone walls for six centuries.

6
00:00:35.079 --> 00:00:35.320
Last.

7
00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:40.200
Bottles in a long wooden bench, amber and cobalt blue

8
00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:45.399
clear cut crystal, each one labeled in fine Italian script.

9
00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:51.520
The air is thick with scent eucalyptus and bergamont and

10
00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:56.479
lemon peel cedar shavings, the faint medicinal pull of menthol

11
00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:01.200
drifting from one of the bottles. A man stands at

12
00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:05.719
the bench, sleeves rolled to the elbow, ink on his fingers,

13
00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:08.640
and a small pot of pale green cream cooling in

14
00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:12.760
front of him. Across the city, in a barber shop

15
00:01:12.920 --> 00:01:18.519
on the Va de Cachello, that same cream, or one

16
00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:23.480
almost exactly like it. It's being warmed up between two hands,

17
00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:29.120
a barber's hands. He works the cream slowly between his palms,

18
00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:33.719
and tuliment just slightly softens until the body. He draws

19
00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:38.439
out the eucalyptus oil until it loosens, and then it

20
00:01:38.519 --> 00:01:43.040
spreads and then comes alive. Then he applies it to

21
00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:48.200
the customer's face. The customer a Florentine merchant, you know,

22
00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:55.000
mid forties. Here for his Saturday shave. He exhales a small,

23
00:01:55.239 --> 00:02:01.560
involuntary sigh, cooling and clean and precise. His shoulders drop

24
00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:04.879
a quarter of an inch into the leather chair, his

25
00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:10.199
eyes close for two minutes, somewhere between the warm towel

26
00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:13.879
and the first scrape of the straight razor. The man

27
00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:19.719
he stops being a merchant, stops being a husband, stops

28
00:02:19.759 --> 00:02:23.199
being a citizen of a country between two world wars.

29
00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:29.080
He's just a man, just a man getting taken care of.

30
00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:34.080
The cream isn't flashy, It isn't revolutionary, at least on

31
00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:39.080
the surface. It's a smaller jar of pale green paste

32
00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:42.280
sitting on a wooden shelf in a barber shop in Florence.

33
00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:48.080
But what it does, what the man behind the workshop

34
00:02:48.159 --> 00:02:53.240
bench has spent his life trying to do, is something

35
00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:59.120
quieter and more important than revolution. It takes a routine

36
00:02:59.240 --> 00:03:02.800
and turns it into to a ritual. It takes something

37
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.400
men endured and makes it something that men look forward to.

38
00:03:08.039 --> 00:03:10.879
The man behind the bench. Isn't trying to change the world.

39
00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:14.159
He's trying to perfect a thing.

40
00:03:14.039 --> 00:03:15.520
The world just rushes through.

41
00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:22.759
His name is Lidovico Martelli, and the small glass jar

42
00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:26.400
of cream cooling on his workbench is the seed of

43
00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.639
something that will outlast him by more than a century.

44
00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:35.560
It will outlast two World wars. It will outlast the

45
00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:39.879
Lira and the rise of the Euro. It will outlast

46
00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:42.800
the rise and fall of empires that tried to flatten

47
00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:47.599
Florence with bombs. It will pass from his hands to

48
00:03:47.800 --> 00:03:51.360
his son's hands, to his grandson's hands, to his great

49
00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:57.960
granddaughter's hands, and the jester in the barbershop two hands

50
00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000
warming a small dab of cream before it touches a

51
00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:06.560
man's face. Well, it will repeat itself somewhere in the

52
00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:11.840
world every single second for the next two hundred plus years.

53
00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:17.040
You're listening to the Mister Hanson podcast, the story of

54
00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:21.040
a quiet Italian who built an empire one jar at

55
00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:44.959
a time, experience podcasts.

56
00:04:39.959 --> 00:04:41.279
The world before him.

57
00:04:42.199 --> 00:04:46.879
Now, to understand what Lidovicio mart Itali built, you have

58
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:51.680
to understand what shaving was before he built it. Early

59
00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:56.120
nineteen hundred's Italy shaving wasn't a convenience.

60
00:04:56.839 --> 00:04:59.399
Shaving wasn't quick, Shaving.

61
00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:03.199
Literally was a correct Most men didn't shave themselves, at

62
00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:07.360
least not properly, not with a straight razor, not at

63
00:05:07.399 --> 00:05:10.519
the edge of the jaw, where the skin pulls thin

64
00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:13.959
and the wrong angle will cut you and drop blood.

65
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:17.360
So they went to a barber two times a week,

66
00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:19.279
sometimes three.

67
00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:20.199
In some towns.

68
00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:24.199
It was Saturday morning ritual, older than the railroads built

69
00:05:24.199 --> 00:05:30.120
around them. Barber shops were everywhere in every Italian city,

70
00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:36.480
every Italian village, every wide spot in the road from Sicily.

71
00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:41.639
To the Alps. But here's the thing. The products, the

72
00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:44.560
creams and the soaps, and the oils.

73
00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:52.279
And the lotions, well mostly inconsistent and harsh and unrefined.

74
00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:57.560
Most barbers just mixed their own. Some use soaps from

75
00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:03.560
local apothecaries. Others bought industrial bars from suppliers in Milan

76
00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:06.519
or turn That just didn't do it.

77
00:06:06.519 --> 00:06:09.240
It left the skin red and tight for hours.

78
00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:13.160
You see, there was no standard, no formula a man

79
00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:18.319
could trust to work the same every single time. There

80
00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:21.319
wasn't really a ritual, at least one that wasn't scaled.

81
00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:25.160
A barber in Naples used one thing, and a barber

82
00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:28.959
and Milan used something different. A barbera in Florence used

83
00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:33.680
a third concoction. His uncle had taught him, something mixed

84
00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:37.680
in a cracked porcelain bowl on a corner shelf. Now,

85
00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:41.560
if a man traveled for business, for family, or for war,

86
00:06:42.839 --> 00:06:47.720
his shave changed every time he changed cities. Same raiser

87
00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:52.319
on his face, but different soaps and different results, different

88
00:06:52.439 --> 00:06:55.680
sting on the way home. And men just kind of

89
00:06:55.800 --> 00:07:01.120
endured shaving. They really didn't enjoy it. Their faces stung

90
00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:05.319
after a Saturday at the barbershop, their cheeks would break out,

91
00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:08.560
and their collars on their Sunday shirts rubbed raw against

92
00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:15.160
their irritated skin. This this was the world that Ludovicho

93
00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:20.000
Martelli stepped into. A world full of barbershops and a

94
00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:25.360
world full of weekly customers, a world full of a

95
00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:29.759
problem nobody had quite figured out how to solve, a

96
00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:39.360
world quietly waiting for the right small jar of cream.

97
00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:44.839
The boy from Florence, Ludovico Martelli, wasn't born into wealth.

98
00:07:45.399 --> 00:07:49.079
He wasn't born into a great industrial dynasty in Italy.

99
00:07:49.959 --> 00:07:53.480
He was simply born into Florence. And being born into

100
00:07:53.519 --> 00:07:57.319
Florence in the late eighteen hundreds was its own kind

101
00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:02.279
of inheritance. See Florence was the cradle of the Renaissance,

102
00:08:02.879 --> 00:08:09.360
the city of Michelangelo or brune Aleski or Leonardo, the

103
00:08:09.399 --> 00:08:13.759
city where craft was a religion older than the cathedrals.

104
00:08:14.920 --> 00:08:18.120
You walk these streets and you absorbed something, whether you

105
00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:22.439
wanted to or not. You absorbed the idea that things

106
00:08:22.439 --> 00:08:26.240
should be well made. You absorbed the idea that the

107
00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:31.399
small thing, the rushtral, the carved corner, the joint in

108
00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:33.519
the wood, the line.

109
00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:35.720
In the scene, well it.

110
00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:39.759
Matters as much as a big one. You absorbed the

111
00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:42.639
idea that a man's name on a piece of work

112
00:08:42.840 --> 00:08:44.519
was a covenant.

113
00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:45.799
With the people who were going to use it.

114
00:08:47.639 --> 00:08:51.159
Ludovico grew up among glass blowers and leather workers and

115
00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:56.639
perfumers and apothecaries, among men who hand mixed palmades and

116
00:08:56.759 --> 00:09:01.080
copper pots, among women who who had sense in their

117
00:09:01.159 --> 00:09:06.440
kitchens for the wealthy ladies of Ottarmo. You see, he

118
00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:11.799
wasn't chasing fame, He wasn't building for headlines. He was

119
00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:19.919
learning a trade quietly and patiently. Like every Florentine before him.

120
00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:23.399
In the trade, he was drawn to the one that

121
00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:26.759
would shape the next four generations of his family.

122
00:09:27.879 --> 00:09:28.720
Was sent.

123
00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.320
The cosmetic, the grooming, the small bottles and jars of

124
00:09:34.399 --> 00:09:37.080
things men and women rubbed into their hair and their

125
00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:41.919
hands and their faces. He was learning to read what

126
00:09:42.039 --> 00:09:45.240
people wanted before they could even put it into their

127
00:09:45.240 --> 00:09:53.720
own words. The Workshop nineteen oh eight. Ludovico is a

128
00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:57.679
young man. He has saved, and he has watched. He

129
00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:01.360
has worked for someone else long enough to what he

130
00:10:01.559 --> 00:10:06.559
wants is to be different. He opens a workshop in Florence,

131
00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:10.120
you know, quaint, a small one, a storefront with a

132
00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:14.679
back room, a simple wooden bench, a shelf of bottles,

133
00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:18.159
a door that opens to the cobblestone street.

134
00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:20.519
Above the door.

135
00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:27.240
Is his name, Ludovico Martelli, and that's it. He doesn't

136
00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:31.399
start with shaving cream. He doesn't start with prorazzo. He

137
00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:34.000
starts with something much humbler than that.

138
00:10:35.159 --> 00:10:35.519
You see.

139
00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:40.279
He starts as a distributor. He imports foreign perfumer reproducts

140
00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:46.559
into Italy. Fine soaps from France, cologne from Germany, hair

141
00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:51.120
tonics from England, Bottles of lavender water and bay rum

142
00:10:51.159 --> 00:10:54.600
and rosewater that wealthy Italians had to send away for

143
00:10:55.080 --> 00:11:00.240
pay through the nose for at exclusive Milanese department stores,

144
00:11:01.159 --> 00:11:06.000
Ludavico opens a different door. He brings them in, and

145
00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:10.879
he distributes them. He builds relationships with shopkeepers and pharmacists,

146
00:11:10.879 --> 00:11:16.919
and barbers and salon owners, with hotel concierge. He drives

147
00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:21.039
by horse and cart, by early automobile, eventually by train,

148
00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:25.519
across regions of Italy that other distributors haven't even tried

149
00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:31.720
to reach, Tuscany and Umbria, and Lazio, eventually Lombardi and Veneto,

150
00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:37.559
and down south into Naples and Calabria. He's a Florentine.

151
00:11:37.639 --> 00:11:41.159
His handshake is good, his prices are fair, and his

152
00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:44.159
samples always arrive on time.

153
00:11:45.960 --> 00:11:46.720
Within years.

154
00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:52.240
He's built something most distributors never actually built, simply a network,

155
00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:57.080
a web of trusted relationships across every region of Italy.

156
00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:02.000
Manufacturers who actually answer its calls, and distributors who keep

157
00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:05.559
his stock, shopkeepers who reorder without.

158
00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:09.279
Even being asked. Now he doesn't.

159
00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:13.639
Know it yet, but the network is the soil, and

160
00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:18.480
the seed will be planted in forty years from now

161
00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:26.440
the distributor's education. The years between nineteen oh eight to

162
00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:31.480
nineteen thirty are quiet years for Lidovico publicly, but they

163
00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:35.879
are loud years inside his own head, because every day

164
00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:39.759
he is learning. He is learning what shopkeepers reorder and

165
00:12:39.799 --> 00:12:43.440
what they don't. He is learning what sense Italian men

166
00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:46.799
actually buy versus what sense the magazines are trying to

167
00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:51.039
tell them to buy. He is learning which French soaps

168
00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:54.559
work in Italian water and which ones just turn the slime.

169
00:12:56.320 --> 00:13:00.679
He's learning what a barber in Bologne ask for when

170
00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:03.879
his current shaving cream stings his customer's face too much.

171
00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:08.519
He is learning what a pharmacist in Genoa wants in

172
00:13:08.559 --> 00:13:11.080
a hair tonic that won't go rancid in a human

173
00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:15.960
coastal summer. He is learning the difference between a product

174
00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:21.159
that sells once and products that sell forever. He's learning

175
00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:24.919
the gestures, the way a barber and Verona warms a

176
00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.000
soap puck before even lathering it, the way a barber

177
00:13:29.039 --> 00:13:32.399
in Palermo dilutes a shaving cream with hot water from

178
00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:38.200
a copper pot, the way a barber and Thrust just

179
00:13:38.279 --> 00:13:41.159
a few miles from the Austrian border mixes a German

180
00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:44.919
tonic into a French after shave, because neither one alone

181
00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:49.799
does what his customers want. A lot of this is

182
00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:52.799
not facts you can read in a book. These are

183
00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:56.360
facts you can only collect by being there. This is

184
00:13:56.440 --> 00:14:00.440
the education that no business school could ever give him.

185
00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:05.080
It's the education only the road gives a man a

186
00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:10.120
thousand conversations with a thousand shopkeepers across a thousand miles

187
00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:15.080
of Italian roads, and the more he learns, the more

188
00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:19.639
a thought begins to grow inside him. Now these foreign

189
00:14:19.679 --> 00:14:22.879
products are good, some of them are even very good,

190
00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:27.559
but none of them are made for Italian men, in

191
00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:32.960
Italian skin with Italian water, or the Italian beards, the

192
00:14:33.440 --> 00:14:39.440
Italian humidity, Italian preferences for what they want to smell like.

193
00:14:40.399 --> 00:14:43.480
You see, there's a gap, the same kind of gap

194
00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:46.960
one hundred founders before and after him would notice in

195
00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:52.120
one hundred different industries, gap that no one else can

196
00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:57.960
quite see because everybody else is already used to using

197
00:14:58.000 --> 00:14:59.039
what's broken.

198
00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:04.159
The quiet dream.

199
00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:08.720
By the nineteen twenties, Ludovico Martelli is no longer a

200
00:15:08.759 --> 00:15:12.600
small distributor. He's one of the most respected names in

201
00:15:12.679 --> 00:15:19.960
Italian cosmetics distribution. But he wants more because he doesn't

202
00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:23.480
want more in the way that most successful distributors want more.

203
00:15:23.879 --> 00:15:26.559
He doesn't want a bigger fleet of trucks. He doesn't

204
00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:30.600
want a corner office in Milan. He doesn't want to

205
00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:35.600
be the largest distributor in Italy. You see, he prefers

206
00:15:35.639 --> 00:15:40.840
something simpler. He wants to make his own. He wants

207
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.240
to take that wooden bench at the back of his

208
00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:47.840
Florentine workshop, the one stacked with foreign bottles he's spent

209
00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:52.080
two decades selling, and he wants to put his own

210
00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:56.120
name on it. He wants the label above the door,

211
00:15:56.600 --> 00:16:00.960
Ludovico Martelli, to also be the on the jar.

212
00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:04.559
This is the dream that he carries.

213
00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:11.000
Quietly through the twenties, through the rise of Mussolini, through

214
00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:17.000
Italy's slow march toward another war, through the years when

215
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:20.919
most ambitious men were either making themselves loud for the

216
00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:24.200
regime or making themselves invisible.

217
00:16:23.639 --> 00:16:27.600
From it, and Ludovico he does neither.

218
00:16:28.399 --> 00:16:31.960
He keeps the workshop running, he keeps the network just

219
00:16:31.960 --> 00:16:35.159
a humming, He keeps the bottles moving in and out

220
00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:39.000
of his back room, and he waits for the moment

221
00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:48.200
to finally make his own. The son who carried it.

222
00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:54.720
The early nineteen thirties, Ludovico's son Piero comes of age

223
00:16:55.399 --> 00:17:01.039
Piero is everything his father is, careful and quiet, observant

224
00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:04.240
to a fault, and lild something that his father isn't.

225
00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:06.799
Piero is restless.

226
00:17:07.640 --> 00:17:12.400
Where Ludovico has spent two decades building a distribution business

227
00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:17.960
by trading on relationships and his firm reputation, Piero looked

228
00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:21.200
back at the workshop and saw a laboratory waiting to

229
00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:25.160
be built. He didn't want to keep moving someone else's

230
00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:31.200
bottles forever. He wanted to fill them. By the early thirties,

231
00:17:31.240 --> 00:17:34.640
with his father's blessing, Piero takes over the day to

232
00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.880
day running of the company. This is the moment the

233
00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:44.599
dream starts moving. Father and son, the founder and the

234
00:17:44.599 --> 00:17:49.880
heir quietly begin building what Ludovico has been carrying in

235
00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:55.319
his head for twenty years. A laboratory in the back

236
00:17:55.400 --> 00:17:59.359
of the workshop, where a small staff and white coats

237
00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:02.920
can make and teste and refine, and poor and label,

238
00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:06.720
where the Martelli name can finally go on a jar

239
00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:11.960
instead of just on a delivery slip. The first product

240
00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:16.119
they launch is a beauty cream. They call it Frabelia.

241
00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:21.839
It's a women's skincare line, soft and floral and refined

242
00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:25.720
aimed at the Italian middle class woman who wanted a

243
00:18:25.799 --> 00:18:31.559
touch of Florentine craft without paying the Parisian prices, and

244
00:18:32.359 --> 00:18:37.440
it works. For Rebellia becomes a well liked, well rounded

245
00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:43.039
skincare line across Italy's in the nineteen thirties, and in

246
00:18:43.160 --> 00:18:49.920
doing so, it teaches the Martellis something profound. It teaches

247
00:18:49.960 --> 00:18:53.880
them that they can make their own. It teaches them

248
00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:58.359
that the network Ludovico spent twenty years building can move

249
00:18:58.400 --> 00:19:01.480
a Martelli jar just as efficiently as it ever moved

250
00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:05.759
a French one. It teaches them the old man's quiet

251
00:19:05.839 --> 00:19:10.279
dream wasn't a dream at all, It was actually a plan.

252
00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:14.880
The wait.

253
00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:23.440
Then the world stops. Nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty nineteen

254
00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:31.960
forty one War, Italy under fascism, Italy at war, Italy

255
00:19:32.119 --> 00:19:40.240
consistently bombed by Allies, Italy occupied by Germans, Italy rising

256
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:46.079
in partisan resistance in the of pennies, Italy starving in Italy,

257
00:19:46.160 --> 00:19:52.359
mourning Italy waiting just for the war to end. Florence

258
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:56.839
even itself is bombed. The old bridges across the armament

259
00:19:57.960 --> 00:20:03.279
except the ponte Veccio are blown up by retreating Germans.

260
00:20:03.319 --> 00:20:04.079
And forces.

261
00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:08.599
In nineteen forty four, the Martelli workshop survives.

262
00:20:09.079 --> 00:20:11.039
The laboratory survives.

263
00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:15.359
The bench, the bottles, the notes, the formulas.

264
00:20:16.319 --> 00:20:17.720
They all survive.

265
00:20:19.599 --> 00:20:26.160
Because quietly the Martelli's just kept working through everything. By

266
00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:30.519
nineteen forty five, when the dust settles and the Allies

267
00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:35.799
sweep north and Italy emerges from the wreckage of fascism,

268
00:20:36.279 --> 00:20:44.240
the Martelli Company astoundingly is still standing, older, lean, a

269
00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:51.359
little battered, but it's still standing. And standing that actually

270
00:20:51.400 --> 00:20:56.240
means something. In post war Italy. Standing actually means that

271
00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:01.039
you now have a head start. Standing means when the

272
00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:05.119
American Marshall planned dollars start pouring into Western Europe to

273
00:21:05.240 --> 00:21:10.960
fund the rebuild, When Italian factories start humming again, when

274
00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:17.519
Italian's income starts climbing, when Italians starts spending money on

275
00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:22.039
small luxuries for the first time in a generation. Well,

276
00:21:22.759 --> 00:21:27.599
you're already there, you see. You already have the workshop,

277
00:21:28.279 --> 00:21:32.119
You already have the laboratory, You already have the network

278
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:33.759
and the dream.

279
00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:37.039
All you need now is the right product.

280
00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:48.119
The lab in postwar Italy nineteen forty eight, a small

281
00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:55.519
Florentine laboratory, wooden bench, glass, beakers, copper, mixing pots, the

282
00:21:55.559 --> 00:22:01.039
smell of eucalyptus oil drifting through a high window. Piero

283
00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:04.400
Martelli stands at the bench. He's in his crime now

284
00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:09.359
late thirties, running the company day to day. His father,

285
00:22:09.519 --> 00:22:14.720
Ludovico is there too, older and quieter, watching the man

286
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:18.599
his son has become. Yeah, they're working on a problem,

287
00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:23.680
the problem his father identified forty years ago on a

288
00:22:23.799 --> 00:22:29.559
thousand dusty roads and a thousand barber shops in conversations

289
00:22:29.599 --> 00:22:34.799
he had across Italy. You see, Italian men, they don't

290
00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.559
enjoy shaving. They just simply tolerated. They endure it.

291
00:22:40.920 --> 00:22:45.799
Their face stings and their skin breaks out. Their barbers

292
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:47.599
do their best with whatever.

293
00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:50.680
Soap is on the shelf, But the soap was never

294
00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:55.559
designed for what they were trying to do. Piero believes,

295
00:22:55.559 --> 00:23:00.240
and his father believes, that somehow there is a different way.

296
00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:06.319
A cream, not just soap, A cream applied before the lather,

297
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:11.079
designed to actually soften the beard and open the follicle

298
00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:15.119
and cool the skin, prepare the face for the razor

299
00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:20.000
instead of just fighting it. A cree shaped cream, and

300
00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:24.240
it doesn't even exist yet, not the way they're imagining it.

301
00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:27.200
So they simply build it.

302
00:23:28.039 --> 00:23:32.240
Eucalyptus oil drawn from the trees growing in the Italian south.

303
00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:39.640
Why well for bracing, for medicinal coolness, menthol for the freshness,

304
00:23:39.640 --> 00:23:43.559
for the subtle numbing of the skin, for the sensation

305
00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:45.240
that turns shaving.

306
00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:48.759
Into a ritual when it used to be a chore.

307
00:23:50.119 --> 00:23:54.440
A base of vegetable oils and glycerine and careful emulsifiers,

308
00:23:55.640 --> 00:23:59.119
A formula that they refine over and over and over

309
00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:03.119
for months. They test it on themselves, and they test

310
00:24:03.240 --> 00:24:07.119
it on their employees. They test on a small circle

311
00:24:07.119 --> 00:24:15.680
of trusted Florentine barbers, willing to try it as willing customers, adjust, refine,

312
00:24:16.359 --> 00:24:22.039
and then adjust again. When they finally settle on the formula,

313
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:27.759
they poured into small jars a pale green paste, cool to.

314
00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:30.079
The touch, sharp with eucalyptus.

315
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:34.400
The first time Pierro hands a finished jar across the

316
00:24:34.440 --> 00:24:38.200
bench to his father, the old man, who is now

317
00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:43.559
in his sixties, opens it, smells it, and close his

318
00:24:43.880 --> 00:24:45.039
eyes for a moment.

319
00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:48.839
He doesn't say much. He never did.

320
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:55.440
Florentines don't say much when something actually matters. He just looked,

321
00:24:55.480 --> 00:25:00.519
determined and nodded. Forty years the dream he had been

322
00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:04.240
carrying since nineteen o eight, sitting in a small jar

323
00:25:04.319 --> 00:25:07.680
on the bench in front of him, And they simply

324
00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:12.880
gave it a name pro Rozzo. It's a contraction of

325
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:20.480
two Italian words crow and rosser prow shave or for shaving.

326
00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:31.160
The simplest possible name for the simplest possible promise, the

327
00:25:31.319 --> 00:25:37.079
miracle cream. The Prorozso preciaved cream doesn't launch with fanfare,

328
00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:42.519
It doesn't launch with the national campaign, it doesn't launch

329
00:25:42.519 --> 00:25:46.920
with celebrity endorsements. It just simply launches, the way every

330
00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:51.680
great Italian product launches, through the hands of the people.

331
00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:53.880
The Martellis send.

332
00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:56.480
Their employees out into the streets of Florence with small

333
00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:00.480
jars of the cream. They walk into barbershop and they

334
00:26:00.759 --> 00:26:05.839
introduce themselves, and they explain, and they demonstrate, Hey, watch this,

335
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:09.640
warm a small dab between your hands and apply it

336
00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:14.000
before the lather. Tell me what the customer says. The

337
00:26:14.039 --> 00:26:18.480
barbers skeptical and professional, the kind of man who ever

338
00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:23.039
heard one hundred sales pitches and rejected ninety nine of them. Well,

339
00:26:23.079 --> 00:26:26.720
they simply try it. They warm it between their hands

340
00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:27.680
and then apply it.

341
00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:29.720
They watch what happens.

342
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:35.240
They watched the customer in the chair as they exhale.

343
00:26:34.839 --> 00:26:37.720
A small involuntary.

344
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:44.559
Sigh, cooling it clean and precise. The skin softens, and

345
00:26:44.640 --> 00:26:48.960
the beard stands up, the razor gliding where it used

346
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:54.519
to drag. The customer leaves the chair without burn, without

347
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:59.319
the redness, without the irritation that he just accepted as

348
00:26:59.359 --> 00:27:02.960
the price of being a clean shaven man for forty years.

349
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:07.000
And he comes back the next week and brings his brother.

350
00:27:07.759 --> 00:27:10.480
He tells his coworker about the cream the barber used.

351
00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:16.799
Then the barber reorders it, and that's it. That is

352
00:27:16.839 --> 00:27:22.680
the entire marketing strategy. A cream so good that men

353
00:27:22.759 --> 00:27:25.559
who used it and the men who watched it being

354
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:29.279
used simply couldn't stop talking about it.

355
00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:34.440
Soon, within a year, and then two, and then five, the.

356
00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:38.839
Small jars of pirozzopre shaped cream are sitting on barbershop

357
00:27:38.920 --> 00:27:45.480
shelves all over Italy, not because of advertising, because of

358
00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:51.519
the barbers. The Italian press starts calling it cream Miracle Lusa,

359
00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:55.640
the Miracle Cream. The nickname will stick with it for

360
00:27:55.680 --> 00:28:07.680
the next seventy five years. The barbershop strategy. Here's where

361
00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:15.279
Ludovico Martelli's strategy reveals itself in full. Most companies, when

362
00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:19.319
they have a product like Prorazzo would have rushed to

363
00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:24.640
math retail, pharmacy shelves and grocery shelves, department stores and

364
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:30.279
newspaper ads national billboards, the fastest possible path to the

365
00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:32.000
largest possible audience.

366
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:36.480
Ludovico didn't. Piero didn't either.

367
00:28:37.559 --> 00:28:41.799
They went to the barbers first, only the barbers.

368
00:28:41.799 --> 00:28:46.440
Four years now. This wasn't an accident.

369
00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:51.599
This was a strategy that came from forty years of

370
00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:58.720
distribution wisdom. Ludovico had spent his entire adult life learning

371
00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:04.400
one truth. The gatekeeper of the experience matters more than

372
00:29:04.440 --> 00:29:09.519
the customer. If a barber trusts his product, his customer

373
00:29:09.559 --> 00:29:13.160
will also trust it. If a barber recommends a product,

374
00:29:13.480 --> 00:29:18.720
his customer will buy it. If a barber uses a

375
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:23.440
product for ten thousand shades over thirty years, his customer

376
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:24.680
doesn't even ask for the name.

377
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:29.039
He just absorbs it, becomes loyal to.

378
00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:32.359
It, defends it when his nephew suggests trying something new.

379
00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:38.400
The barber is the gatekeeper. The barber is the church.

380
00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:43.920
You don't market past the priest, you earn the priest.

381
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:50.400
Think about what that takes. It takes patience, and it

382
00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:56.799
takes unusual humility. It takes the willingness to walk into

383
00:29:56.839 --> 00:30:01.359
one hundred small shops and one hundred small towns, hat

384
00:30:01.400 --> 00:30:05.559
in hand and humble and say, try this. Tell me

385
00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:08.960
what your customers think, Tell me how it could be better.

386
00:30:10.359 --> 00:30:13.000
It takes discipline to keep your price is fair when

387
00:30:13.039 --> 00:30:16.720
other companies would have simply raised them. It takes the

388
00:30:16.759 --> 00:30:20.559
discipline to keep the formula consistence when other companies would

389
00:30:20.599 --> 00:30:25.440
have achieven it. It takes the discipline to keep showing

390
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:31.240
up year after year and decade after decade, long after

391
00:30:31.319 --> 00:30:34.279
the early excitement has faded and the only thing that

392
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:35.079
remains is.

393
00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:37.599
The daily reorder slips.

394
00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:45.319
So the Martellis went to the barbers, and only the barbers,

395
00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:51.279
and they stayed there for decades, even as parazzo grew,

396
00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:56.319

S2E2: The Barbershop Empire: The Untold Story of Ludovico Martelli

Listen On

Recent Episodes