DE FRISTEL MILET | PREMIUM BEAUTY NEWS | http://bit.ly/2hLXpcr

#Guerlain, #luxury #cosmetics flag-bearer for #sustainable #development

Spurred on by CEO Laurent Boillot, Guerlain included sustainable development to the company’s strategy as soon as 2007. Although they had remained discreet about their approach since then, the brand has just published a third report celebrating “10 years of sustainable commitment, In the Name of Beauty”, highlighting both their achievements and ambitions for 2020. The decision to finally communicate on this resulted from a nurtured strategic commitment for the future, on all levels. Sandrine Sommer, Sustainable Development Director of the prestigious brand, detailed its content and scope for Premium Beauty News.

Premium Beauty News - In 2007, luxury and sustainable development hardly worked hand in hand. How was this initiative born? 

Sandrine Sommer - It was born from a strong-willed man, Laurent Boillot, who had just taken over Maison Guerlain. Sustainable commitment was mainly a personal belief. But beyond that, sustainable development definitely had to be an integral part of the company’s strategy to develop, pass on, and preserve Guerlain’s heritage.

Premium Beauty News - Protection of bees (they are the Maison’s emblem), biodiversity, climate, eco-design, social responsibility… your commitment is global and you have already made very concrete achievements, like the new Orchidée Impériale pack lightened by 60%. After 10 years, what are your greatest satisfactions?

Sandrine Sommer - Internal mobilization and involvement, first. From the very beginning, we implemented an efficient collaborative organization with a “sustainable development” steering committee composed of 18 people from every department in the company. For sustainable development to be a project on the level of the whole company, with a real will to change and the right structure to do it, and for our employees to be the best ambassadors, it was essential for me to have all trades involved and get one referent per department. In addition, I am very proud of having brought up to date the Abeille bottles, making them indefinitely refillable, thanks to our perfume fountains. To me, the perfumer Guerlain concept embodies sustainable luxury. And we have great ambitions to gradually deploy the concept.

Premium Beauty News - What are your objectives for 2020?

Sandrine Sommer - There are many of them, but they can be grouped into four main challenges: biodiversity preservation. We already work with sustainable sourcing players for Guerlain’s iconic raw materials. Also, we have made a lot of efforts for bee protection, in particular on Brittany’s Île d’Ouessant, and we are now developing our projects on the global level. The second challenge for us is ecodesign. It is probably one of the most complex. The idea is to make things as, or even more beautiful, while preserving the planet’s resources. We aim for 100% of our new products to be ecodesigned by 2020. Then, as far as climate is concerned, we have committed to reduce our CO2 emissions by half compared to 2007, for example by choosing maritime transport. Lastly, as regards social responsibility, definitely one of our own priorities, we support a global association dedicated to self-esteem: Look Good Feel Better. They offer women receiving cancer treatment free beauty workshops in hospitals. By 2020, we would like to be able to support them in all countries where Guerlain has settled.

Premium Beauty News - How did the transition go with your suppliers?

Sandrine Sommer - We worked together with the LVMH Perfume & Cosmetics branch to develop a responsible purchasing charter and define a number of guidelines that would help us make progress. The charter was co-set up with steering suppliers and is used as a working basis to go forward together, that was most important.

Premium Beauty News - How did you make the notions of environmental protection and luxury match?

Sandrine Sommer - They are not incompatible, there are actually matching elements between luxury and sustainable development that are almost natural, even consubstantial, in particular the notions of long periods of time, of the selection of rare and precious raw materials that require protection, or of know-how that needs to be passed on…

On the contrary, it can be difficult to communicate, because we are aware of the fact that we are not exemplary yet – no one is. It is an issue on which we have been innovating on a daily basis. Many luxury companies have been working for a long time on this, but they do not make it public that much. Guerlain has only just started, but we still want to keep humble and sincere in how we do it. It is a continuous improvement process, a long, step-by-step building process, without compromising on the quality and prestige perceived with luxury houses.

The “green” vision of sustainable development is behind us now. It is time to highlight beautiful, sustainable innovations to reconcile both. That is what the challenge involves.

Premium Beauty News - Is your public ready to hear these arguments?

Sandrine Sommer - The luxury public is getting increasingly sensitive to this. To our customers, it is just obvious, as long as you are a luxury brand, you should do things well. It is up to us to go farther and anticipate their questions and aspirations. For example, we have communicated on our rare, natural materials for long. Today, we are going further, by putting an emphasis on our commitment to protect biodiversity in light of these rare ecosystems.

We have a prescribing, training role: it is up to us to raise customer awareness.

Premium Beauty News - How are you going to communicate on this issue?

Sandrine Sommer - Every year, we organize two events at Guerlain Champs-Élysées to put forward committed men and women. These players work on Sustainable Development on a daily basis. They come to share their experiences with a concerned public, my counterparts from different companies and industries, associations, all our stakeholders… It is a different way to communicate, but we do believe in the pollination of ideas and the strength of committed networks.

FROM LUXURY DAILY | FROM SATRAH JONES | JANUARY 5, 2017

France’s Chanel is exploring the anti-aging secrets of three far-flung populations with a shared claim.

The beauty brand’s newly released Blue Serum took inspiration from Blue Zones around the world, places where the locals live remarkably longer lives. In an effort to prove the claims of its product, Chanel is inviting consumers to journey to these locales in a series of short films.

Chanel was reached for comment.

FEELING BLUE

Chanel’s Blue Serum is being touted by the brand as “a new horizon for skincare.”Explaining the inspiration and ingredient sourcing for this serum, Chanel filmed travel diaries to the Blue Zones that contributed to the product.

Against footage taken in Costa Rica, a female narrator says, “You can feel the life force in everything and everywhere.” Portraying this energy are images of waterfalls amid greenery.

Still from Chanel's Blue Serum film

The voiceover explains how Costa Rica’s green coffee can only be found in the country, which may contribute to the locals’ long lives.

In Italy, the Mediterranean locale is said to be the home of centuries’ old olive trees.

Chanel turns its attention to the sun in Greece, which it says is in everything. This includes soil, plants and the lentisk tree.

Discover the Power of Blue Serum - Chanel

All videos include the statement, “It’s something special. Some call it a mystery. It’s just life.”

These ingredients—sourced from Nicoya, Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy and Ikaria, Greece, all hold antioxidant properties. According to the brand, a trial found the serum to reduce wrinkles, even skin tone and firm skin.

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L’Oréal growth remains strong in China despite economic slowdown

By Simon Pitman+, 02-Aug-2016, cosmeticsdesign-asia

 Despite the economic slowdown in China, L’Oréal’s performance in the country continues to go from strength to strength as the product innovation pipeline is maintained.

The article shares the information that for the first six months of the year the like-for-like growth was 4.6 to €2.8bn, while on a reported basis it rose 0.6%.

L’Oréal Luxe maintains momentum in China

Especially the performance of the luxury brands Yves Saint Laurent and Giorgio Armani contributed to the strong sales of the company’s luxe division. In the Asia Pacific region it has been driven by the launch of Ultra Doux in China and India, while in Southern Asia the reason lies behind the roll-out of the Garnier brand.

On an international basis, the company stressed that the currency negatively impacted the results by 3.9% for the first six month of the year. According to the group, the like-for-like revenues for the first half of the year accounted for 4.2% to €12.89bn, which represented a reported growth of 0.6%, taking into consideration the negative impact of currency exchange.

Interestingly, all divisions and geographies reported growth despite the impact from currency translation, while the Luxe and Active Cosmetics divisions were the most outstanding ones despite the challenging situation.

“L’Oréal Luxe, in a market that remains solid, is continuing to deliver sustained growth by capitalizing on its unique brand portfolio and by maintaining its innovation drive”, explains L’Oréal CEO Jean-Paul Agon, who points equally out that the strength of the group lies definitely within its balanced business model.

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Spending on beauty up in China, despite cooling economy

By Lucy Whitehouse +, 27-Jul-2016, cosmeticdesign-europe

Chinese consumers are still keen to spend on beauty in China, according to newly released research from Mintel, with the majority of those surveyed stating they spent more on facial skin care in 2015 compared to 2014.

In 2014-2015 the total retail sales of cosmetics in China grew about 12%, as the article points it out and reached therefore the RBM 204.9 billion. According to Mintel the forecast for 2020: There will be still a high demand that will translate itself until 2020 into a RMB of 338 billion.  

The senior beauty and personal care analyst at Mintel explains that Chinese purchases move to online retailing, wherefore marketing will be key success factor for Chinese beauty brands. The number of consumers using mobile devices when paying their beauty products has doubled during the past 2 years.

As Chen believes “mobile is becoming the battlefield for beauty retailers”. The next challenge is therefore to engage customers through a pore personalized and targeted presentation of the offers.

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L’Oreal confirms offer to buy niche thermal water skin care player

By Simon Pitman+, 15-Jul-2016, Cosmeticsdesign-europe

The world’s biggest cosmetics company has confirmed that it is going ahead with the acquisition of a tiny France-based skin player with a very long name: Société Des Thermes de Saint-Gervais-Les-Bains.

The article outlines that the acquired company has a hypoallergenic skin care portfolio formulated for sensitive skin types and contains safe preservatives that guarantee the formulation’s security and tolerance.

The range constitutes six different product lines from famed thermal waters: Cleansing, redness and irritations, greasy skin types and a treatment for acne, sun care and anti-ageing.

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Eye on the Trends in Asia: customisation

By Lucy Whitehouse +, 20-Jul-2016, cosmeticsdesign-asia

Four key trends are tipped to define the skin care market in Asia in the coming years, according to research from Euromonitor International. In this series of specials, Cosmetics Design takes a closer look at each, starting here with customisation.

According to a research analyst with Euromonitor based in Singapore, customization is defined as key trend, since the consumer demand for personalized skin care products is growing. Indeed, 50.5% of the respondents claimed ‘suited to my skin type’ as the decisive element during their last skin care purchase.

In China there are five key areas in which personalization is strongly demanded:

• Age
• Moisture balance
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Lifestyle

Consequently, the article outlines the importance of catering to consumers’ specific needs related to ethnicity and offering products that correspond to the consumers’ local environments, climates and cultural beliefs and identities.

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