Loreal

“L'ORÉAL has been built around fundamental values which have guided us throughout the life of our company, and continue to do so today. Our values have shaped our culture, and they underpin our reputation.”
Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

L’Oréal has always endeavoured to be an exemplary company, not only in economic but also in ethical terms. We aim to make L’Oréal a great place in which to work, and we know that our employees are our greatest assets. They are entitled to a safe and healthy working environment: one in which personal talent and merit are recognised, diversity is valued, privacy is respected, and the balance between professional and personal life is taken into account. We believe in offering our employees a stimulating environment, exciting personal opportunities and a chance to make a difference. We encourage an atmosphere of openness, courage, generosity and respect, so that all our employees feel free to come forward with their questions, ideas and concerns.

Board of directors

In 1909, young chemist and natural entrepreneur Eugène Schueller sets up the company that will later become L’Oréal. 


Everything begins with one of the first hair dyes, which he designs, produces and sells to hairdressers in Paris. 


The move forges the first link in the chain that is to become L’Oréal “DNA”: using research and innovation to enhance beauty.

The L'Oréal Group's main facts and figures for 2010:

• Over 100 years of expertise in cosmetics
• 5 key areas of expertise: haircare, hair colour, skincare, make-up & fragrances
• 23 global brands*
• Products distributed in 130 countries
• €19.5 billion consolidated sales in 2010
• €665 million in R&I investments in 2010
• 612 patents filed in 2010
• 66,600 employees worldwide

Dream, Excel and Succeed together

Creativity, innovation and partnership – three reasons that prompt leading hair stylists to choose L’Oréal Professionnel and its products.

L’Oréal Professionnel products, developed in close collaboration with leading hairdressers, are the fruit of their technical expertise and the technological breakthroughs achieved by L’Oréal Research.
The brand’s hair colour products are cutting edge. In 2009, L’Oréal Professionnel launched INOA, a revolutionary odourless, ammonia-free hair colour for optimised respect of the hair and scalp.
The Série Expert, Série Nature and L’Oréal Professionnel Homme lines offer quality professional haircare products suitable for all stylists and consumers.
The Tecni.art, Play ball and Texture Expert styling ranges are hugely popular with hair designers and the Série Expert line offers precision professional haircare products. X-Tenso, a long-lasting hair straightener, is also one of L’Oréal Professionnel’s most successful innovations.

With its finger on the pulse of fashion, L’Oréal Professionnel provides hair designers and colourists with the tools they need to fully unleash their creativity. Twice a year, L’Oréal Professionnel creates the “Colour Collections”, major events that put hair design at the centre of fashion and where technical expertise and innovation meet the latest catwalk trends. Working with leading international stylists, the brand transposes these looks to the hairdressing industry, so that every customer can emerge from the salon with a style reflecting the latest trends.

Sales, profits
  

For more than a century L’Oréal has been pushing back the boundaries of science to invent beauty and meet the aspirations of millions of women and men. Its vocation is universal: to offer everyone, all over the world, the best of cosmetics in terms of quality, efficacy and safety, to give everyone access to beauty by offering products in harmony with their needs, culture and expectations.

With the opening up of the emerging markets, L’Oréal’s mission is broadening in response to the vast diversity of populations. The whole company is focused on this new horizon: teams enriched by their cultural diversity, a portfolio of international brands present in the different distribution channels, and research that is capable of grasping the world’s complexity. The exploration of new scientific and technological territories is being enriched by this global dimension. Knowledge of different cultures and rituals worldwide enables the laboratories to anticipate and invent the products of the future.

L’Oréal is committed to carrying out its mission to make beauty universal in a sustainable and responsible way. A highly exacting challenge, which the group is taking up step by step, in a long-term perspective, with the active involvement of all its employees. Ranked amongst the 100 most sustainable and ethical companies in the world, L’Oréal’s ambition is to be an exemplary corporate citizen. To help make the world a more beautiful place.

L’Oréal has five worldwide research and development centers: two in France: Aulnay and Chevilly; one in the U.S.: Clark, New Jersey; one in Japan: Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture; and in 2005, one was established in Shanghai, China. A future facility in the US will be in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

From 1988 to 1989, L'Oréal controlled the film company Paravision, whose properties included the Filmation and De Laurentiis libraries. StudioCanal acquired the Paravision properties in 1994.

L’Oréal purchased Synthélabo in 1973 to pursue its ambitions in the pharmaceutical field. Synthélabo merged with Sanofi in 1999 to become Sanofi-Synthélabo. Sanofi-Synthélabo merged with Aventis in 2004 to become Sanofi-Aventis.


On 17 March 2006, L'Oréal purchased cosmetics company The Body Shop for £652 million.

The company has recently faced discrimination lawsuits in France related to the hiring of spokesmodels and Institutional racism. In the UK, L'Oréal has faced widespread condemnation from OFCOM regarding truth in their advertising and marketing campaigns concerning the product performance of one of their mascara brands.

A book by Monica Waitzfelder, published in French as L'Oréal a pris ma maison and in English as L'Oréal stole my house!, details how L'Oréal, a company claimed to be anti-Semitic by the author, took over the Waitzfelder home in the German city of Karlsruhe (after the Nazis had engineered the removal of the family) to make it its German headquarters.

L'Oréal's famous advertising slogan is "Because I'm worth it". In the mid 2000s, this was replaced by "Because you're worth it". In late 2009, the slogan was changed again to "Because we're worth it" following motivation analysis and work into consumer psychology of Dr. Maxim Titorenko. The shift to "we" was made to create stronger consumer involvement in L'Oréal philosophy and lifestyle and provide more consumer satisfaction with L'Oréal products. L'Oréal also owns a Hair and Body products line for kids called L'Oréal Kids, the slogan for which is "Because we're worth it too".

Protest group Naturewatch states that L'Oréal continues to test new ingredients on animals.The company states that no animal testing for finished products has taken place since 1989 and that L'Oreal has invested significantly in alternative methods for chemical safety testing, though they implicitly acknowledge that they continue to perform animal testing of ingredients.

Following L'Oréal's purchase of The Body Shop, who continue to be against animal testing, The Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick was forced to defend herself against allegations of abandoning her principles over L'Oréal's track record on animal testing. Calls were made for shoppers to boycott The Body Shop.

In 1987, L'Oréal and 3 Suisses founded Le Club des Créateurs de Beauté specializing in mail order sales of cosmetic products.

February 2011: L'Oreal will have the largest factory in the Jababeka Industrial Park, Cikarang, Indonesia with total investment of US$50 million and it will be ready in October 2011. The production will be absorbed 25 percent by domestic market and the rest will be exported. In 2010 significant growth occurred at Indonesia with 61 percent increase of unit sales or 28 percent of net sales

Joint ventures and minority interests

L’Oréal holds 10.41% of the shares of Sanofi-Aventis, the world's number 3 and Europe's number 1 pharmaceutical company. The Laboratoires Innéov is a joint venture in nutritional cosmetics between L’Oréal and Nestlé; they draw on L’Oréal's knowledge in the fields of nutrition and food safety. Galderma is another joint venture in dermatology between L'Oréal and Nestlé.

In 1907, Eugène Schueller, a young French chemist, developed a hair dye formula called Auréale. Schueller formulated and manufactured his own products, which he then sold to Parisian hairdressers.

On July 30th 1909, Schueller registered his company, the Société Française de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux ("Safe Hair Dye Company of France" literally "French Society of Inoffensive Tinctures for Hair"), the original L’Oréal. The guiding principles of the company, which eventually became L’Oréal, were research and innovation in the field of beauty.

In 1920, the small company employed three chemists. By 1950, the research teams were 100 strong; that number reached 1,000 by 1984 and is nearly 2,000 today.

L’Oréal got its start in the hair-color business, but the company soon branched out into other cleansing and beauty products. L’Oréal currently markets over 500 brands and many thousands of individual products in all sectors of the beauty business: hair color, permanents, hair styling, body and skin care, cleansers, makeup and fragrances. The company's products are found in a wide variety of distribution channels, from hair salons and perfumeries to hyper - and supermarkets, health/beauty outlets, pharmacies and direct mail.

Eugene Schuller

Eugène Schueller (20 March 1881 Paris – 23 August 1957) was the founder of L'Oréal, the world's leading company in cosmetics and beauty.


Career With Loreal

As a young French chemist and 1904 graduate of the Institut de Chimie Appliquée de Paris (now Chimie ParisTech), Eugene Schueller developed in 1907 an innovative hair-color formula. He called his dye Auréale. With that, the history of L'Oréal began. He formulated and manufactured his own products, and sold them to Parisian hairdressers.

In 1909, he registered his company, the "Société Française de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux", the future L'Oréal. The guiding principles of the company that would become L'Oréal were put into place from the start: research and innovation in the interest of beauty.


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