Collistar

Collistar is an Italian beauty company founded in Milan in 1983 and headquartered in the city to this day. It makes skincare, makeup, body care, haircare and sun care, and is positioned as a prestige brand sold across Italy and more than 45 countries. By volume, the company describes itself as the number-one beauty brand in Italy, citing NPD market data for the prestige perfumery segment [5]. It has been part of the Italian consumer-goods group Bolton since 1993 [6].

The brand built its identity around an accessible, distinctly Italian idea of beauty: quality products offered at lower prices than were typical in perfumeries at the time, paired with a "just enough" approach that, in the company's words, holds that women "do not need complex routines or following new trends" to look their best.

Collistar was founded in 1983. The company's own heritage pages confirm the Milan founding and the year but do not name the people behind it [5]. According to the trade publication WWD, the brand began when Alberto Zambeletti, owner of the pharmaceutical company Zambeletti, recruited Daniela Sacerdote as chief executive — a role WWD reported she held throughout the company's history [7]. Sacerdote, as WWD told it, believed Collistar could "carve out a specialized niche, offering quality products at lower prices than typically found in perfumeries" [7].

From the outset the brand leaned on its origins. Sacerdote told WWD that she wanted the Made-in-Italy character of the line to be clear, and products have been conceived and developed at the Milan headquarters and produced with specialized partners across northern Italy [7].

After a decade as an independent Italian house, Collistar became part of the Bolton Group in 1993, the point at which broader international growth began [6]. Exports followed from 1996, reaching first into Malta and Portugal before expanding further [7]. By the time the brand marked its thirtieth anniversary in 2013, WWD reported that exports made up about 34 percent of the business across roughly 6,500 retail doors worldwide, in markets including Russia, the Netherlands, Poland, China and Germany [7].

WWD also documented the brand's standing in its home market. Drawing on NPD Group data, it reported that by 2013 Collistar held leading shares in several categories in Italy — including about 49 percent of self-tanners and just over half of exfoliants — and that the company had recorded €193.5 million in volume in 2011 [7].

Collistar is owned by the Bolton Group, an Italian group that acquired it in 1993 [6]. Within Bolton's portfolio it sits alongside other beauty names, including Borotalco and Neutro Roberts. Bolton describes Collistar as an Italian beauty brand "born in Milan in 1983" whose products have become "recognised and sought after by consumers in over 45 countries" [6].

Collistar frames its outlook as "liberating beauty" — what the company calls an effortless approach "free from rigid standards and the expectations imposed by society and the media." The brand ties this to a sense of Italian style, where restraint and the right products are presented as more effective than elaborate routines. Alongside this, the company emphasises a scientific footing, describing its development work through a framework it calls Collistar Clean Research, which it characterises as combining efficacy with skin tolerance and a focus on respecting both skin and the environment.

The range spans face care, body care, makeup, haircare, sun care and a men's line. The brand's best-known products belong to its sun-care line: the Gocce Magiche, or "Magic Drops," self-tanning concentrates, sold in face, body and protective variants. Per WWD's reporting of NPD data, these helped give Collistar a dominant share of the Italian self-tanner market by 2013 [7]. The company also markets sun-care formulas with claims such as "DNA protection" and "anti-spots" within its anti-age tanning treatments.

Under a programme it calls "We Care," Collistar has set out packaging and sourcing commitments, organised around sustainable Italian ingredients, eco-designed formulas and reduced-plastic packaging. The company says it has cut its plastic use by 19 tonnes through eco-design, that its paper has been fully FSC-certified since 2019, and that its Talasso scrub moved to fully recycled and recyclable plastic [3]. It has also stated a target for all of its products to come in "100% recyclable or refillable packaging" by 2025 [3].

Collistar is an active, operating brand. It runs a live international e-commerce site carrying a 2026 copyright, positions itself as Italy's best-selling prestige beauty brand by volume, and trades across Italy and more than 45 countries [5]. Its scope is best described as multi-regional — strongest in its home market while exporting widely — rather than uniformly global.