Proraso

Proraso is an Italian men's grooming and shaving brand based in Caldine, near Fiesole in the hills above Florence. It is owned by Ludovico Martelli S.p.A., a family-run company now in its fourth generation of management. The brand is best known for its shaving creams, pre-shave and post-shave products, and beard-care range, and it markets itself around a single idea: professional barber-quality shaving that works equally well in the salon chair or at home. Proraso remains active and sells internationally; it marked its 75th anniversary in 2023 [11].

The brand's history runs on two dates that are sometimes confused. The parent company, Martelli & Co., was founded in Florence in 1908 by Ludovico Martelli, at first as a distributor of foreign perfumery [11]. Proraso itself dates to 1948, when Ludovico's son Piero Martelli invented a pre-shave cream and the name became an officially registered brand [8][9]. The company treats 1948 as the brand's founding year while pointing to 1908 as the beginning of the wider family business.

Before Proraso existed, the Martelli firm sold imported perfumery and cosmetics. According to a grooming-industry account, Piero Martelli introduced a "Frabelia Beauty Cream" in the 1930s before turning to shaving, where he devised a pre-shave preparation he called Proraso — a contraction of "pro shave" [9]. The Manual dates the brand's official registration to 1948 and describes further shaving products, including a shaving cream, foam and soap, following through the 1950s. The pre-shave cream has been in continuous production since 1948 [8].

Proraso is owned by Ludovico Martelli S.p.A., headquartered on Via Faentina in Fiesole, Florence. There is a minor discrepancy in how the parent's legal form is recorded: the company's own site gives it as Ludovico Martelli S.p.A. [7], while the English Wikipedia entry lists the owner as Ludovico Martelli S.r.l [8]. Both refer to the same firm, and the legal form may simply have changed over time.

The parent group's portfolio extends well beyond shaving. Alongside Proraso it has included the toothpaste brand Marvis, the body-care line Kaloderma, the shampoo brand Schultz, and the soap maker Valobra, which it acquired the year before its own 2019 recapitalisation. In October 2019, the Hong Kong-backed investment firm Nuo Capital acquired a 30 percent stake in Ludovico Martelli through a 50 million euro capital increase, while the Martelli family retained the majority and kept management control [10]. Trade reporting at the time put the group's 2018 turnover at 60 million euros, with roughly 30 percent of sales generated outside Italy and about 120 employees across two Italian plants. The stated aim of the deal was to accelerate international growth, with a particular focus on Asia.

Proraso's positioning rests on Italian heritage and the culture of the barbershop. The company frames its purpose as offering "professional quality products for a pleasant and impeccable shave, at the barber's or at home" [1], and describes its ambition as making highly specialised products for shaving and beard care that combine classic tradition with newer formulation. Its promotional line, "The Italian barbers' choice since 1948," sums up the appeal to both professionals and home wet-shavers. The brand's Portraits section leans on this theme, presenting the stories of individual barbershops rather than the company's own corporate history.

The core of the range is organised into colour-coded lines, each built around a different set of ingredients and skin needs. The Green (Refreshing) line, scented with eucalyptus oil and menthol, was the brand's first and remains its flagship; the White line uses oat extract and green tea for sensitive skin; the Red line pairs shea butter and sandalwood for coarse beards; and the Blue line combines vitamin E and aloe vera. Each line spans pre-shave creams, shaving soaps and foams, aftershave balms and lotions, alongside accessories such as shaving brushes. A "Single Blade" professional range adds three fragrance-led variants — Wood and Spice, Azur Lime, and Cypress & Vetyver — and Proraso today also fields a full beard and moustache line covering washes, balms, oils, waxes and colognes.

The green metal tube shaving cream is the brand's signature product. Wikipedia describes it as Proraso's most popular item, and industry coverage reports it as the best-selling shaving cream in Italy, favoured by barbers and traditional wet-shavers internationally [8]. All Proraso products are made in Italy, at the company's operations in Caldine, Fiesole [7].

Proraso's public profile is closely tied to traditional wet shaving and Italian barbershop culture. In 2019, WWD covered the Nuo Capital investment and reported the group's turnover and manufacturing footprint. In 2023, The Manual published a brand-history feature on the company, and the same year the brand marked 75 years since its 1948 founding.

Proraso is active and operates globally. Its website and full product range are maintained, it exports a substantial share of its revenue, and its 2023 anniversary campaign was its most recent widely reported public activity [11]. The 2019 recapitalisation by Nuo Capital was explicitly framed as support for further international expansion.