In one of its largest research and innovation efforts in the history of the company, L’Oréal has opened a new Global Hair Research Center, located in Paris Saint-Ouen. The cutting edge facility is the head of a network of six regional centers around the world (located in Japan, China, India, U.S., Brazil and in Saint-Ouen for Europe), and uses cutting-edge automation and modelling tools across collaborative platforms conducive to innovation. The Center’s research and innovation programs are exclusively dedicated to the hair care profession, which includes hair coloring, hair care (shampoos, conditioners), styling (sprays, gels, waxes), perms, smoothing and straightening.

One of the largest investments in L’Oreal’s research and innovation history, the 25,000m² center employs 500 chemists, physico-chemists, opticians, materials scientists, metrologists, rheologists, computer scientists and statisticians. And according to L’Oréal, the facility’s architecture and amenities have been designed to foster collaborative spaces conducive to the sharing and transfer of skills.

To support the innovation flow, ambitious and effective tools allow researchers to fully explore the endless possibilities offered by the science of formulation and evaluation. For example, robots mimic product applications on hair or prepare time-saving formulas. Thus, to date, the automatic weighing robot has weighed nearly one million coloring samples for approximately 100,000 formulas that require testing.

Original numerical modelling tools using already acquired data, evaluate virtual formulas so that only those most likely to meet consumer needs are to be developed.

Besides their scientifically proven technical efficacy, products also generate emotions. To measure the emotional components of product performance, this Research Center has developed sensory evaluation expertise carried out by 50 expert technicians and established procedures which monitor consumers’ actions and record their feelings.

All the information thus collected in this Global Center and the six regional centers, is fed back into the hair innovation processes.