About Us
Footsiebath®
is a family owned and operated business based in Beverly Hills,
CA.
How
our company started:
Our founder, Genya Vinokur, better known as “the
manicurist to the stars” due to her expertise, perfection
and legendary work, attracts the most sophisticated and demanding
clients in the world. Most of Genya’s clients have been
coming to her for over 3 decades because of her unparallel work
and insist that there is no one better in natural nail care.
In 1989, Genya experienced an incident involving a nail tech who
refused service to an admittedly HIV client. At that moment, she
knew the nail salon industry would need to change for sanitary
purposes. This client admitted to having an illness, how many
other clients come in without admitting they have an infectious
illness? She realized that precautions had to be made for infectious
diseases such as, HIV, Hepatitis, Staph Infection (Staphylococcus
Aureus), and that a barrier of some kind was needed to isolate
manicure bowls and pedicure tubs from these diseases. The problem
was that no one manufactured products like this. Aids and HIV
was an unknown illness at the time, so was Staph which has in
fact been the cause of severe illness, even death for some pedicure
patrons of unsanitary nail salons across the United States. Back
then there were no standards for practicing proper sanitizing
methods for tools and footbaths as there are today. The nail industry
was unsanitary and Genya was going to do something about it.
She started using toxic cleaners to sanitize surfaces of tables,
tools and foot baths. After many years, she started struggling
with her own skin problems such as skin ulcers on her fingers
due to constant exposure. She started going to dermatologists,
and one after another told her the same thing: if she wants to
keep her fingers she needs to stop what she loves to do, Nails.
Around the same time, in 2001, her husband of 40 years passed
away form Leukemia. Depressed and needing to do something new
in her life she decided to manufacture products that were desperately
needed to make work easier and safer for techs and clients alike.
The first step was to develop a conceptual footbath with her former
partners that would incorporate a liner principal. The bath was
just a concept, no heat, no vibration. This was a “no frills”
bath to address the basic needs of sanitation. However, after
only 6 months on the market with her former partners, her first
company Belmar was dissolved due to
a difference of opinion in the direction of where her concept
was going. She knew,more then anyone, what the needs of a pedicurists
are, and moved on to develop what is now known as the Footsiebath®.
The development took 5 years with several engineers around the
world, from Denmark to Hong Kong, to come up with what is the
most perfect product ever developed for a Pedicure tech, which
now includes several patent applications.
In 2006 we started with a few salons in Beverly Hills, Newport
Beach CA. and the United Kingdom where it is rated to this day,
as the number one foot bath ever made. In January 2007 Genya hired
Peter Mazziliano, a leading manufactures representative in the
industry, with over 40 years experience. Peter knew the concept
from the beginning in 2002, as well as all the parties involved.
He understood that Genya knew that the product was going to revolutionize
the nail salon industry. Now Peter and his firm GM & associates,
are the sales partner to Footsiebath®.
Demonstrating at every trade show attended, Fotsiebath® has
gotten, praise and recognition from top professional manicurist
around the world. They all have the same comment, “why has
it taken so long to come up with a product like this to be made?”
Genya’s answer was, “Tools and appliance being manufactured
are engineered mostly by people who have never practiced the profession,
who don’t know pedicures, how could they? There are so many
products that look great but are completely worthless to a professional.”
Genya wanted change, which was derived from frustration, and had
achieved satisfaction because she had the courage to do it herself.
