By Nicola Mawson
FRENCH beauty giant L’Oréal expressed its commitment to Africa during a celebration of the company’s 60-year anniversary in South Africa.
Speaking at an event at its South African headquarters in Woodmead, north of Johannesburg yesterday, L’Oréal Global CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said the company had accompanied South Africa along its “transformation and resilience” journey.
At the event, models showcased fashion from the 80s, 90s, and the 2000s.
“We are the world number one in beauty, and we touch millions of people every day; men and women,” said Hieronimus. “We bring a touch of Parisian elegance to Johannesburg.”
L’Oréal, headquartered in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine in France, is home to brands such as Garnier, Maybelline, Valentino, and Diesel. It started life in 1909, when Eugène Schueller, a young chemist with an entrepreneurial spirit, formulated, manufactured and sold a hair dye to Parisian hairdressers.
Last year, it outperformed the dynamic global beauty market in 2023 with its strongest growth in over two decades when excluding the year immediately after Covid, as this growth was off a low base. The group broke the €40 billion (R789bn) sales barrier for the first time and posted record results, up 11% like-for-like, and 76% in reported figures.
It has 86 000 employees across 150 countries.
Hieronimus said that the beauty company’s sub-Saharan Africa headquarters was in Johannesburg as it was the largest unit in Africa. He noted that the company wanted to make certain that products created for Africans were created in Africa. “Beauty is highly cultural.”
He said, “These 60 years are just the beginning. These 60 years are the first of the next 60 years. We love Africa, we love South Africa. This incredible rainbow is very important to me.”
L’Oréal opened its first factory in South Africa in 1972, on Johannesburg’s West Rand after entering the country in 1963. The factory has since been moved to Woodmead.
Hieronimus said, “We are here to invest, to create products. Our pledge is to understand the local consumer.” Items made in South Africa were not only exported across the rest of the continent, but also to the US.
L’Oréal, which has had a research centre in South Africa for a decade, spends 3% of its business, or €1.2 billion (about R24bn) in R&D every year, working on beauty products to cater for aspects such as sun damage.
Hieronimus said science was “at the heart of what we do. Science is making progress every day’”.
While the company “wants to grow faster than the market to gain extra market share”, sustainability was also important, and Hieronimus said all its operations in South Africa would be working off renewable energy by the end of this year. He also noted that it had zero landfill and was inclusive when it came to sourcing.
“We want to contribute to the world,” he said.
Some local women had been selected to join the L'Oreal-Unesco For Women in Science programme, a focus area given there weren’t enough women scientists. The first edition of the L’Oréal-Unesco For Women in Science South African National Young Talents programme was launched in 2019.
“We believe that science needs women,” said Hieronimus.
L'Oreal-South Africa CEO, Serge Sacre, said, “People love beauty … we want to create the beauty that moves Africa.”
BUSINESS REPORT