L'Oréal S.A.

What does L'Oréal own?
L'Oréal owns approximately 37 international beauty brands organized across four divisions. In Consumer Products: L'Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline New York, NYX Professional Makeup, and Essie. In L'Oréal Luxe: Lancôme, Kiehl's, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Urban Decay, and Aesop. In Professional Products: Kérastase, Redken, L'Oréal Professionnel, Matrix, and Color Wow. In Dermatological Beauty: La Roche-Posay, CeraVe, Vichy, and SkinCeuticals.

Is L'Oréal publicly traded?
Yes, L'Oréal S.A. is listed on Euronext Paris under ticker OR and is a component of the CAC 40 index. The company has been publicly traded since 1974. The Bettencourt Meyers family holds approximately 33% of the capital, providing effective influence without majority control. The remainder is held by institutional investors, Nestlé (which holds a reduced minority stake), and public shareholders.

Who founded L'Oréal?
L'Oréal was founded in 1909 by Eugène Schueller, a French chemist who developed a synthetic hair dye formula called Auréale for Parisian hairdressers. Schueller incorporated the company in Clichy and built it into a major French consumer company over his lifetime. His daughter Liliane Bettencourt inherited control of the family holding, and her descendants, the Bettencourt Meyers family, remain the largest shareholders today.

Where is L'Oréal headquartered?
L'Oréal is headquartered in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France, where Eugène Schueller founded the company in 1909. The headquarters is located in the western suburbs of Paris, close to the company's historic manufacturing and research facilities. L'Oréal's global R&D headquarters is also located in France, in the Aulnay-sous-Bois area.

How many brands does L'Oréal own?
L'Oréal owns approximately 37 international brands across its four divisions. The company has historically grown through acquisition, adding major brands at regular intervals. The most recent significant additions include Aesop (acquired 2023), Skinbetter Science (2023), and the House of Creed plus 50-year beauty licenses for Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, and Alexander McQueen (acquired March 2026 through the Kering Beauté transaction). The Gucci 50-year beauty license begins after Coty's current license expires.

Who owns L'Oréal?
L'Oréal is a publicly traded company. The Bettencourt Meyers family, descendants of founder Eugène Schueller, hold approximately 33% of the capital through their family holding company Téthys. Nestlé S.A. holds a reduced minority stake of less than 10%. The remainder is held by institutional investors worldwide. Nicolas Hieronimus serves as CEO, appointed in May 2021, and Jean-Paul Agon serves as non-executive Chairman.

Is L'Oréal cruelty free?
L'Oréal's brands are not independently certified as cruelty free by Leaping Bunny or PETA's Beauty Without Bunnies program at the group level, primarily because L'Oréal has sold products in markets where animal testing is mandated by local regulators. The company states it does not conduct animal testing itself. Chinese regulatory reforms since 2021 have reduced mandatory testing requirements for ordinary cosmetics. Consumers should verify the current status of individual L'Oréal brands through the Leaping Bunny database, as certification status varies by brand and market.

What is L'Oréal's annual revenue?
L'Oréal reported full-year 2025 sales of €44.05 billion, growth of 4.0% on a like-for-like basis and 1.3% as reported. The operating margin reached a record 20.2%. Earnings per share were €12.71. E-commerce represented 30% of total sales. The company has grown revenue from approximately €25 billion in 2015 to €44 billion in 2025, driven by both organic growth and acquisitions.

Eugène Schueller founded the company in 1909 after developing a synthetic hair dye formula he called "Auréale," which he initially sold to Parisian hairdressers. Schueller, a chemist by training, had recognized that professional hair salons represented an underserved distribution channel for scientifically formulated beauty products. He incorporated the company as the Société Française de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux (the French Company for Inoffensive Hair Dyes) in 1909, with the product name later shortened to L'Oréal.

Through the 1920s and 1930s, Schueller expanded the product range into soaps and cosmetics and began developing the advertising and branding capabilities that would distinguish L'Oréal from competitors. The company expanded internationally to Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands before World War II, establishing a pattern of geographic expansion that would characterize its growth strategy throughout the century.

Schueller died in 1957, and control passed to his son-in-law François Dalle, who led L'Oréal for the next two decades. Under Dalle, the company executed its first major acquisition, purchasing Lancôme in 1964. Lancôme was a mid-size French luxury cosmetics brand, and its acquisition signaled that L'Oréal intended to move beyond its professional haircare roots into prestige beauty. Garnier was acquired in 1970, adding a mass-market skincare and haircare brand that complemented the L'Oréal Paris consumer line.

L'Oréal became publicly traded in 1974, providing capital for accelerated international expansion. The Bettencourt family, which had owned Nestlé shares since a 1974 cross-shareholding arrangement, retained effective control alongside Nestlé's minority stake. In 2014, Nestlé sold most of its L'Oréal shares back to the company and the Bettencourt family, reducing Nestlé's stake substantially.

The 1990s and 2000s saw a major acceleration in acquisition activity. Maybelline was acquired in 1996 for approximately $758 million, extending the company's reach into North American mass-market cosmetics. Redken (professional haircare) was acquired in 1993. SoftSheen-Carson (products for textured hair) was acquired in 1998 and 2000, expanding L'Oréal's presence in ethnic beauty. Kiehl's (heritage skincare) was acquired in 2000. The purchase of Shu Uemura in 2000 strengthened the company's position in Japan and prestige makeup.

In 2006, L'Oréal acquired The Body Shop from Anita Roddick's company for approximately £652 million, intending to use the ethical beauty retailer as a vehicle for sustainable positioning. The Body Shop's performance under L'Oréal was mixed, and in 2017 L'Oréal sold the brand to the Brazilian cosmetics group Natura for approximately €1 billion.

The Dermatological Beauty division's current form was shaped by two key acquisitions: CeraVe in 2017 for approximately $1.3 billion, and the internal development of La Roche-Posay (acquired in 1989) into a globally distributed skincare brand. CeraVe in particular became one of the most significant beauty acquisitions of the 2010s, growing from a US pharmacy brand into a global skincare category leader driven by social media and dermatologist recommendation.

In 2022, L'Oréal acquired Aesop, the Australian luxury apothecary brand, from Natura for approximately $2.525 billion, one of the largest beauty acquisitions in the decade. Aesop added a distinctive sensorial luxury positioning to L'Oréal's portfolio.

In 2023 and 2024, L'Oréal acquired several smaller brands to strengthen specific category positions, including Skinbetter Science (professional skincare) and Color Wow (haircare styling). On March 31, 2026, L'Oréal completed the acquisition of Kering Beauté from Kering for €4 billion. The deal gave L'Oréal outright ownership of the House of Creed, the niche fragrance house, plus 50-year exclusive beauty licenses for Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, and Alexander McQueen. A 50-year beauty license for Gucci is included in the agreement and begins after Coty's current Gucci beauty license expires. The acquisition consolidates L'Oréal's position as the dominant player in luxury fragrance and adds several high-growth fashion house beauty licenses to the L'Oréal Luxe division.

For full-year 2025, L'Oréal reported sales of €44.05 billion with like-for-like growth of 4.0%. The company accelerated quarter-on-quarter through the year, with the second half growing faster than the first. The Dermatological Beauty and Professional Products divisions were the strongest performers. E-commerce reached 30% of total sales.

L'Oréal operates its sustainability commitments under the "L'Oréal for the Future" program, which sets 2030 targets across climate, water, biodiversity, and social dimensions. The company has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and to reducing absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% by 2030, a target validated by the Science Based Targets initiative.

The company has received the Carbon Disclosure Project triple A rating (A for climate, A for water security, and A for forests) for ten consecutive years, one of the highest sustained CDP scores in the global consumer goods industry.

On cruelty-free status, L'Oréal's position is complex. The company states it does not test its products on animals and advocates for the elimination of animal testing in cosmetics globally. However, L'Oréal products sold in mainland China have historically been subject to mandatory animal testing requirements under Chinese regulations, which has led cruelty-free advocacy organizations including Leaping Bunny and PETA to classify L'Oréal and most of its brands as not independently cruelty-free certified. As of 2023, China began reforming its mandatory animal testing requirements for ordinary cosmetics, though implementation is ongoing. Individual L'Oréal brands should be checked individually via the Leaping Bunny database for current certification status.

L'Oréal is not certified as a B Corporation at the group level, though the company participates in various voluntary sustainability initiatives and certifications at the brand level.

The company sources ingredients including palm oil and its derivatives, and is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. L'Oréal has committed to 100% RSPO-certified palm oil sourcing.

L'Oréal has been named one of Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Companies for 16 consecutive years, as of 2025. This designation from the independent Ethisphere Institute recognizes corporate ethics and governance performance across multiple dimensions.

L'Oréal regularly appears in Fortune's Most Admired Companies rankings and in Forbes Global 2000. The company has been recognized as one of the world's most sustainable companies in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) for multiple consecutive years.

The CDP triple A rating, maintained for ten consecutive years, is among the most substantive independent environmental performance recognitions available to public companies. CDP evaluates climate transparency, water stewardship, and forest-related commitments independently of company self-reporting.

L'Oréal has faced criticism from cruelty-free advocacy organizations over the years for selling products in markets where animal testing is mandated by regulators, particularly mainland China. The company has consistently responded that it does not conduct animal testing itself but must comply with local regulatory requirements. Regulatory reform in China from 2021 onward has progressively reduced mandatory testing requirements, though the issue has not been fully resolved.

In 2021, a L'Oréal-sponsored campaign featuring transgender model Munroe Bergdorf was canceled by the company following social media controversy, before the company subsequently reversed course and reinstated Bergdorf in a public-facing role. The episode drew attention to the tensions companies face in managing brand ambassador relationships.

The European Commission has examined the personal care and beauty industry broadly for potential competition concerns in recent years, including pricing and distribution practices. No specific findings against L'Oréal have been reported as of March 2026.