L'Oréal has opened its North America Research & Innovation (R&I) Centre located in Clark, New Jersey in the United States.
Representing a $160m investment, the nearly 250,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art scientific research centre is L'Oréal's largest outside of France.
The centre will continue to play a pivotal role in sustaining and growing L'Oréal's portfolio of iconic American brands such as Maybelline, CeraVe, Redken and Kiehl's, reinforcing the company's long-standing presence in the US market.
Notable features include a 26,000-square-foot modular laboratory, a consumer centre for product testing and co-creation (accommodating up to 400 consumers daily), and an on-site mini factory to scale final formulations before full-scale production.
“This centre embodies L'Oréal's uniquely end-to-end innovation model, from upstream Advanced Research on new breakthrough ingredients to the downstream development of formulas ready for scale-up to deliver high-performance, safe, and responsible beauty solutions,” said Barbara Lavernos, Deputy CEO of L'Oréal Groupe, in charge of Research, Innovation, and Technology.
As part of L'Oréal's global research ecosystem, the centre complements its R&I hubs in France, Brazil, South Africa, India, China, and Japan and represents a significant, long-term investment in the US and local market economy and workforce.
The R&I centre employs more than 600 highly skilled scientists, engineers, and researchers working across product innovation, development and testing to develop relevant, high-quality and safe beauty products.
“The centre actively partners with leading academics, biotech companies, and startups in the US to discover, invent and scale-up new ingredients, new product offerings, and breakthrough innovations that are more sustainable, inclusive and personalized, tailored to varying consumer needs, skin tones, hair types and textures, and beauty expressions and aspirations,” it said.
