Rubis

Rubis is a Swiss manufacturer of precision tweezers and beauty tools, founded in 1961 in Stabio, in the canton of Ticino, and still operated under the legal name Outils Rubis SA [1]. The company began by making fine tweezers for the Swiss watch industry, and only later turned that engineering toward cosmetics. It remains a family-owned, active manufacturer, led for decades by owner and chief executive Fides Baldesberger.

The name traces back to the workshop's first task: the earliest tweezers were built to set ruby stones into watch movements, and the brand adopted "Rubis," the French word for ruby, as its identity. According to the company, it has been "synonymous with authentic Swiss quality" ever since.

Rubis was founded in 1961 by makers from French-speaking Switzerland, whose names are not recorded in the company's public accounts [10]. Its first customers were watchmakers who needed instruments precise enough to handle the tiny components of a mechanical movement, and early clients are listed as including Patek Philippe, Cartier and Rolex [2]. Out of this work grew what the company describes as an independent handicraft tradition marked by a strong sense of precision and attention to form.

When the Swiss watch industry entered its crisis in the 1970s, Rubis diversified. It moved into semiconductors and, over time, extended its precision-tweezer work into electronics, microelectronics, telecommunications, research, pharmaceuticals and surgery, serving industrial clients such as Motorola, General Electric, Siemens, Toshiba and Hewlett Packard.

Paul Baldesberger acquired a majority stake in the company in the mid-1960s [10]. The figure most associated with Rubis, however, is his daughter, Fides Baldesberger, an art historian by training who studied at the Gemological Institute of America and had earlier worked in the diamond and gemstone trade before joining the family firm [6]. She is explicitly not the founder, but the owner who reshaped the business.

Sources differ on exactly when she took charge. The company dates the transition to 1984, stating that when she "first arrived in Stabio in 1984, she quickly realized that Rubis had seen better days and decided to run the company herself" [6]. The regional business profile Ticino Welcome instead records her father's death in 1981 and her appointment as chairman of the board in 1987 [10]. The takeover appears to have been gradual rather than a single event.

Under Baldesberger, the company built new sales and marketing functions, constructed a new factory, and made what she called the decisive move: entering the cosmetics market. Identifying a gap in quality tweezers made for cosmetic use, she applied the firm's existing manufacturing expertise to design its first cosmetic tweezers, a shift that turned a struggling supplier into a consumer brand.

Rubis positions itself around what it terms "honest luxury." The company frames this as restraint rather than display: "People want things that are not more inflated than they really are. It is a quiet luxury, without shortcuts and sensation." Its design language favours, in its words, "clear, timeless forms" that avoid short-lived trends, an approach it aligns with Bauhaus principles. A guiding product principle stated by Baldesberger is that "aesthetics are essentially the result of function."

Durability is central to how the brand describes itself. It says it makes tools intended to last "as long as possible, so that it can be passed on from one generation to the next," placing tweezers alongside knives, watches and bags as objects built to endure. The company also states that its tweezers are made from recyclable materials and last a lifetime [1].

The catalogue spans professional and everyday tweezers, manicure instruments, scissors, a men's collection and eyelash tweezers. The Classic Slant Tweezers are the brand's best-known cosmetic tool, while the Prestige Line offers versions finished in gold, red gold and rhodium, some set with diamond, ruby or sapphire accents.

The company says all products are made by hand in Switzerland "according to all rules of traditional craftsmanship," from raw material to finished product, with the tip finished by hand and each piece inspected before it leaves the factory. It describes its parts as made of acid-resistant surgical steel, suitable for autoclave sterilisation [3]. The firm emphasises craftsmanship over automation and keeps its manufacturing in Stabio.

Fides Baldesberger has twice been named entrepreneur of the year, receiving the Veuve Clicquot Prize in 1988 and an Ernst & Young award in Switzerland in 2001 [10]. The company notes that it recognised early — it dates the observation to 1996 — that "a simple tool can become an icon of design" [7].

The tools have drawn repeated praise in beauty and fashion press. Vogue called them "the best of the best," and make-up artist Bobbi Brown described the Rubis as "the Ferrari of tweezers" [10]. A 2021 BuzzFeed review headlined the brand "The Only Tweezers Worth Buying," quoting a professional waxer who praised the engineering, tension and durability, and noting a following among beauty professionals who report exclusive loyalty to the tools [11].

Rubis is active. It remains a family-owned Swiss manufacturer under Outils Rubis SA, still led by Fides Baldesberger, with a current product catalogue, worldwide retail distribution and active social channels. The company marked its sixtieth anniversary in 2021, publishing dedicated "60 Years of Rubis" content [5].