Vale Bernard Mas 1939 – 2023
A pioneer of our modern professional cosmetics industry. Creator of the modern Sothys company, distributed exclusively in professional beauty clinics & spas in 130 countries worldwide today.
Bernard Mas was my friend and mentor for 43 years, from the time I commenced the Sothys Australian agency in 1981. It was much more than a commercial relationship as we became interwoven within his family network, which now include his two son’s families in generational ownership of Sothys. This is the nature of French family owned businesses, a concept totally impossible in the hard impersonal reality of most large cosmetic corporations today. Bernard Mas’ family bought Sothys in 1966, on the retirement of Dr Hotz, a Bio-Medical scientist, who started Sothys (pronounced So-tis) in 1946 working out of a small boutique in the prestigious rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in central Paris. Dr Hotz was a keen Egyptologist and named his professional skin treatment range after the ancient Greco-Egyptian star of beauty & healing, Sot-(h)is. [Otherwise named Sopdet, the ancient Egyptian name of the star Sirius and its later personification as the Egyptian goddess Isis]. Bernard Mas was a philosopher. Everything he did was through the inspiration of deep thought … creative thinking inspired by his love of classical ancient Greek philosophy. He was certainly a ‘humanist’ by nature and character.
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Bernard attended the Sorbonne (university) in Paris graduating in business studies and philosophy, both of which rounded off his deep sense of ethics in business, melding well with his Libran sensibilities towards upholding high principles in everything he did. He was a moral man of great ethical fortitude who was able to see both sides of a situation or dispute and make the appropriate and decisive decision. A rare person in this. Bernard later devised a term to describe our intuitive connection in relationships. He named this the “Fil de Vie”… the Thread of Life. This invisible thread is the phenomena that draws certain people together throughout life. In familial terms it could be from grandmother to daughter to granddaughter in passing down behaviour or manners, or a skincare routine of personal care. In general, it’s the invisible thread that ties certain people and friendships together... but it doesn’t connect everyone… it’s an inexplicable bond between certain people, it’s intuitive, it’s a connective character that attracts human to human. There is certainly a link bonding together those who understand the nature of Sothys, the line of trust, the continuity, and the integrity. Within a decade of Bernard Mas taking over the Sothys company, he initiated his
