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L'Oréal is a listed company, but the founder's daughter Liliane Bettencourt and the Swiss food company Nestlé each control over a quarter of the shares and voting rights.
In 1909, Schueller registered his company, the Société Française de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux ("Safe Hair Dye Company of France" literally "French Society for Inoffensive Hair Dyes"), 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.
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. She declared that her belief in the power of cosmetics to enhance female beauty was greater than any concern over animal testing. As a result, 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.
The L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science was established to improve the position of women in science by recognizing outstanding women researchers who have contributed to scientific progress.
The awards are a result of a partnership between the French cosmetics company L'Oréal and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and carry a grant of $100,000 USD for each laureate. [1]
The same partnership awards the UNESCO-L'Oréal International Fellowships, providing up to $40,000 USD in funding over two years to fifteen young women scientists engaged in exemplary and promising research projects.
In May 2007, L'Oréal was one of several cosmetic manufacturers ordered by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia to withdraw advertising regarding the wrinkle removal capabilities of their products.
In July 2007, the Garnier division and an external employment agency were fined €30,000 for recruitment practices that intentionally excluded non-white women from promoting its shampoo, "Fructis Style". L'Oréal is reported as saying the decision was "incomprehensible", and would challenge the measure in court.
In July 2007, the British Advertising Standards Authority attacked L'Oréal for a television advert on its “Telescopic” mascara, featuring Penélope Cruz, stating "it will make your eyelashes 60% longer." In fact, it only made the lashes look 60% bigger, by separating and thickening at the roots and by thickening the tips of the lashes. They also failed to state that the model was wearing false eyelashes.
L'Oréal USA has its headquarters in New York City, its New Jersey headquarters is in Berkeley Heights.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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