L’Oréal launches organic skin and body care brand La Provençale Bio

By

Sarah Ahssen

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Oct 5, 2018

Launching an entirely new brand is quite a rare event for the L’Oréal group, which is more used to buying beauty labels rather than creating them from scratch. In 2018 however, the world’s number one cosmetics group has stepped up the pace by launching three new brands: Seed Phytonutrients, a natural-ingredients-based brand chiefly targeted at the US market; House99, a men’s grooming brand created in partnership with David Beckham; and the latest to date, La Provençale Bio.

La Provençale Bio is positioned in the organic beauty segment, and is being introduced in mass market distribution in France. In 2017, the organic beauty segment in France was worth €480 million and grew by about 7%, well above the growth rate of the ‘conventional’ beauty market. “We have seen the market for organic products boom in the food sector, but the trend is still in its infancy in beauty, where demand is still higher than supply,” said Raphaëlle Sabran-Egasse, marketing general manager for the consumer products division at L’Oréal France.  

La Provençale Bio’s launch will be supported by a TV advertising campaign until the end of the year. The brand is certified organic, with Provence-sourced extra-virgin olive oil, rich in polyphenols and Vitamin E, at the core of its formulas. The entire range, currently featuring 12 products, from anti-ageing cream to deodorants and shower gels, is produced by L’Oréal’s French factories. La Provençale Bio is proud of its local roots, emphasising on the labels that its products are made in France (‘Fabriqué en France à Flers’).

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The L’Oréal group has further heightened its local community engagement by partnering the Miimosa crowdfunding platform, which promotes organic agriculture in the Provence region.

To launch La Provençale Bio, L’Oréal has tapped the expertise of Sanaflore, an organic beauty brand it bought in 2006, which is now part of its active cosmetics division. Indeed, L’Oréal’s mass market brands are increasingly going organic, as for example some of the group's other labels, like Mixa, Cadum and Garnier.