La Bouche Rouge, a France-based clean beauty brand has raised 10 million euros in a funding series from investors Mirabeau Asset Management, the Chalhoub Group, and BPI.
About La Bouche Rouge
La Bouche Rouge was founded in 2017 by L’Oréal veteran Nicolas Gerlier, with a mission to take eco-consciousness beyond a mere label and make it a way of life. The brand provides non-toxic, vegan, and cruelty-free formulas, free of microplastics, petrochemical derivatives, or silicones.
While the products themselves are vegan and cruelty-free, the brand does make use of animal-derived leather for its plastic-free packaging, whilst also offering an alternative vegan leather option made from a unique, recycled fiber material created by Stella McCartney.
Clean, Blue Beauty
“There are three keywords: rethink, refill, recycle,” Nicolas claims. “Because the goal of La Bouche Rouge is really to reinvent a new approach of beauty with a minimum of waste, but the maximum of pleasure. We are inventing blue beauty.”
According to Nicolas, Blue beauty involves not just clean formula and packaging, but also clean merchandising, production processes, and supply chains. Here’s to hoping that their packaging can go on to become fully free from animal skin as well.
The brand currently has 22 product references overall including makeup for eyes, lips, and face. La Bouche Rouge will soon release product categories such as ‘Fragrance’ and ‘Skin care’ in their collection.
Funding & Backers
In September 2020, La Bouche Rouge raised 2.5 million euros in funding from BPI and some business angels. With the new round of financing, the brand is set to expand further in Europe, with plans to open its first freestanding store in China in the next 12 months.
According to estimates, La Bouche Rouge is believed to potentially generate annual revenues of 100 million euros in the next five years, which indicates the rising demand for clean, vegan cosmetics in the global market.
Gerlier said the shareholders in this financing round “believe in a vision, about the necessity to build something new for the 21st century. They invest in La Bouche Rouge because they want to make their money positive. They want to have a positive impact on the world.”
The brand is advised by Muriel Petit, head of consumer products EMEA at Jeffries. The Chalhoub Group had La Bouche Rouge on its radar for a couple of years.
“The Chalhoub Group has been closely looking at clean beauty brands, so we could help accelerate and better develop our expertise in clean beauty,” Michael Chalhoub, president of strategy, growth, innovation, and investment and joint ventures at the Chalhoub Group. “Nicolas is someone that we found fascinating — with a great story, great entrepreneurial spirit, and a fantastic background, with a great formula he managed to develop.
“The synergies were found straightaway, [with] La Bouche Rouge being a brand in a field that we know very well, that is tackling some of the [same] issues from a very different angle — with the use of the right technologies for clean beauty and for social media marketing,” he continued. “We thought there’s a lot to learn from each other, so we decided to invest with some key partners into the project, help them accelerate their plans in Europe, China, the U.S. [and] Middle East.”
Chalhoub has already introduced La Bouche Rouge in Riyadh, in the group’s Concept Store by Muse, as well as some locations in Dubai, such as Harvey Nichols and Mall of the Emirates.
