Clio Zammatteo has spent almost half of her life as a protagonist of social media. Known to most people as ClioMakeUp, the name of the YouTube channel opened in 2008 and of her line of cosmetic products, the 41-year-old from Belluno has written the rules of online beauty, reaching a community of over ten million people. An unexpected success for a career that began almost by chance and continued with dedication, which placed the entrepreneur under the sometimes ruthless social spotlight, confronting her with the need to “protect my privacy and that of my daughters”.
Was she one of those little girls who steal their mother’s makeup?
“At most face cream, but if he found out he would get very angry. I was far from the girls of today, I felt ugly: I had braces, bowl cut hair, I was a scout. And when I started at 12 to try the first tricks I stayed locked in my room, it was just a game.”
Who was Clio before ClioMakeUp?
“I come from a family of ice cream makers. My great-grandparents already were, who had opened an ice cream shop in Germany. So my parents also left from February to November to do the working season there. I stayed in Belluno with my grandmother until the end of the lessons, then I joined them and gave them a hand for the entire summer”.
At a certain point he even decided to stay.
“At 17 I had a moment of crisis and I dropped out of school. In the meantime, my parents had separated and I remained in Italy with my father. At that point I decided to join my mother in Solingen and I stayed there for three years. Then I realized that I didn’t want to work in an ice cream shop all my life. It is no coincidence, however, that my first lipstick collection is called CreamyLove, in homage to my family history.”
When will the makeup arrive?
“Much ahead. After finishing high school I enrolled in a video design course at the Ied in Milan, where I met my husband, Claudio Midolo, later co-founder of the ClioMakeUp brand. I’ve never been a video editing genius, but on the other hand I realized that I enjoyed doing my classmates’ makeup for video clips. So Claudio pushed me to follow this passion and three months after graduation we moved to New York, where I attended a professional school for make-up artists. Shortly after we opened the channel on YouTube.”
Remember the first video?
“Great, but I never published it. I imitated the tutorials of the Americans, I felt ridiculous. Shortly after I published one for real, a presentation of a few minutes in which I told what I wanted to do.”
Does it ever concern him?
“Sometimes I get very tender. I was shy and hoped no one would see it, not even my friends or relatives.”
Did his parents see him?
“No and for some time they didn’t know anything. I only had to explain to him what I was doing when the first article about me came out in Italy. But they thought it was a game, at the time I wasn’t earning anything and being a content creator wasn’t yet a profession.”
When did it become serious?
“I would say around 2014. The books and television had already arrived, then we opened the blog with a real editorial team. But until the launch of my cosmetic line in 2017 I didn’t know if it would last, there were so many meteors on social media.”
But she wasn’t.
“Maybe because I arrived among the first and people became fond of me. I was spontaneous and did not represent that model of unattainable beauty that we were used to seeing on television.”
Didn’t he have any push?
“What I earned I got from my savings. We still have no investors and the
And today that your company has a turnover of more than 11 million, what relationship do you have with money?
“I can definitely treat myself to things I couldn’t afford before, but I’m not a spendthrift. I’m always very careful and I don’t like to show off. To a social evening among other influencers, I prefer the one at home in fleece pajamas.”
Does this success make you envious?
“Maybe at the beginning, because the world is full of people who talk in front of a camera. But I think it happens much less since I have my own product line and show how complicated running a company is.”
A year ago, however, he let loose an outburst against the unbridled competition of the beauty world. At that moment, she also said, a person dear to her was not well.
“When you’re going through a difficult time, everything seems bigger than it really is. Now I realize that the competition is starting to be healthier.”
From what?
“Everyone is on their own and no longer tries to emerge by criticizing others”.
A couple of months ago she shared a new tearful video. “It was the hardest year of my life,” she said. Work or personal issues this time?
“Too personal to tell on the web. When everything can’t be said, people become curious and try to investigate. With that video I just wanted to say that even in my life there can be difficult moments, despite the fact that I am in a privileged situation. Not everything we see on social media is perfect.”
What is it that you can’t see?
“There was a time when my community perceived it as a positive thing that I had lost a lot of weight. In fact I was so sad I couldn’t even eat.”
Even his recent blepharoplasty surgery, with which he corrected his drooping eyelid, was much talked about and even criticized. Did the comments hurt her?
“Not for the first time, because it’s something I really wanted to do and which I’m convinced is useful for my work. Many told me that from being a champion of acceptance I would become plastic like all the others, but now that I have shown myself after the operation they recognize that the difference is practically not noticeable.”
And does she like herself?
“I’m still a little swollen and you can see the scars, but I’m satisfied.”
Was it a truly free choice? Many of her had pointed out this “defect” in her.
“It certainly had an impact that many people noticed the same thing that I noticed too. But the comments only accelerated an operation that was already scheduled, because I have always had droopy eyelids and over time they would only get worse.”
Does time passing weigh on you?
“No, in fact, I see myself as more beautiful now than when I was 17, I wouldn’t go back to how I felt as a girl. I saw myself as fat, not conforming to what was considered beautiful. Today I have a different awareness and serenity.”
But doesn’t resorting to makeup, as well as cosmetic surgery, mean not accepting yourself?
“For some it may be like this. There are those who wear makeup to correct aspects of themselves that they don’t like. But I have always considered makeup as a pampering, a way to enhance yourself without altering yourself. Also because when you take off your make-up you have to accept seeing your natural image in the mirror.”
Do your four- and six-year-old daughters wear makeup?
“Only for Halloween and Carnival, the rest of the year they only use a body moisturizer. But they can’t enter my make-up room, the most I give them is cocoa butter.”
They appear less and less on his social profiles.
“I try to protect our privacy. When I first got pregnant I had no idea what was okay to share. Recently, however, I realized that when we go around people recognize my eldest daughter even before me and she doesn’t like this. As they grew up, they themselves asked me not to take photographs.”
Minors on social media were also discussed at the last Agcom technical table, where you were present as a brand. Do we need a code of discipline?
“As creators of digital content for 15 years we are happy that the guidelines equate content creators to traditional audiovisual media services. We are working on greater control over the overexposure of children on social media. But in general we need clear rules for the sector, it’s time to put them down in black and white.”
