Société Anonyme | |
Traded as | Euronext: OR |
Industry | Personal care |
Founded | 1909 |
Founder | Eugène Schueller |
Headquarters | 41, rue Martre, 92110 Clichy, France |
Area served
|
Worldwide |
Key people
|
Jean-Paul Agon (Chairman and CEO) |
Products | Cosmetics and beauty products |
Revenue | € 25.257 billion (2015) |
€ 4.388 billion (2015) | |
Profit | € 3.297 billion (2015) |
Total assets | € 28.219 billion (2014) |
Total equity | € 20.005 billion (2014) |
Number of employees
|
78,600 (2014) |
Subsidiaries | |
Website | loreal.com |
L'Oréal S.A. is a French cosmetics company headquartered in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine with a registered office in Paris. It is the world's largest cosmetics company and has developed activities in the field of cosmetics, concentrating on hair colour, skin care, sun protection, make-up, perfume and hair care; the company is active in dermatology, toxicology, tissue engineering, and biopharmaceutical research fields and is the top nanotechnology patent-holder in the United States. The company is a component of Euro Stoxx 50 .
In 1909, Eugène Paul Louis Schueller, a young French chemist of German descent, developed a hair dye formula called Auréale. Schueller formulated and manufactured his own products, which he then sold to Parisian hairdressers. On 31 July 1919, Schueller registered his company, the Société Française de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux (Safe Hair Dye Company of France). The guiding principles of the company, which eventually became L'Oréal, were research and innovation in the field of beauty. In 1920, the company employed three chemists. By 1950, the team was 100 strong; that number reached 1,000 by 1984 and is nearly 20,000 today.
Schueller provided financial support and held meetings for La Cagoule at L'Oréal headquarters. La Cagoule was a violent French fascist-leaning and anti-communist group whose leader formed a political party Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire (MSR, Social Revolutionary Movement) which in Occupied France supported the Vichy collaboration with the Nazis. L'Oréal hired several members of the group as executives after World War II, such as Jacques Corrèze, who served as CEO of the United States operation. This involvement was extensively researched by Michael Bar-Zohar in his book, Bitter Scent.