EXCLUSIVE: MyBlend Personalized Skin Care Brand to Relaunch
PARIS — With the upcoming relaunch of MyBlend, the luxury made-to-measure skin care brand first introduced in 2007, the aim is to build a second pillar next to the Clarins brand.
MyBlend is the brainchild of Olivier Courtin, group managing director of Groupe Clarins.
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“Why are we relaunching MyBlend? Because, first of all, we believe in personalization. And personally, I believe also in peptides,” he explained.
Courtin said the original line was complicated, with lots of products, and did not garner great success among consumers since it was ahead of its time. They didn’t understand the concept of a made-to-measure skin care treatment lasting one month.
“We said ‘OK, we’ll start again with a blank page.’ We’ll keep personalization, the name and peptides, which for me are important for products’ efficacy because they really target skin’s biology to make it work normally. I wanted to make a line that’s much simpler.”
So the new MyBlend, due out starting May 16 in France, has a base product coming in two textures — a cream and a fluid, each for both day and night use — and booster serums that can be layered on according to skin’s needs.
Courtesy of MyBlend
Altogether, the brand has some 30 products, including 22 cosmetics, of which seven are “super serums”; three supplements, and four tools, including an LED mask and three mechanical tools. (The devil is in the details; most products come with a mini pink quartz gua sha-cum-spatula.)
Prices for the skin care, which includes enzymatic cleansers, a peeling product, facial masks and body items, range from 75 euros for the Firmness serum to 130 euros for the Nourishing Mask and 290 euros for the Revitalizing Cream.
A digital diagnostic will be available to help navigate through the offerings. To use it, people can upload a selfie that can help measure skin’s hydration levels or wrinkle depth, for instance. The diagnostic also takes into account answers to a questionnaire in order to best give made-to-measure advice about which products to choose.
“All of this allows it to be much easier for someone to enter the brand,” Courtin said. “That’s why we are making an essentially digital brand, with points of sale either in spas, shops or independent perfumeries. We can, perhaps, make a chain, for example, in a country like the U.S.”
MyBlend incarnates his holistic approach to skin care. It’s inside-out and outside-in beauty, with the new treatment products having formulations with highly concentrated actives that respect the skin and, particularly, its microbiota.
Alongside Courtin, the line’s four-year development was spearheaded by Suzy Lebert, MyBlend’s brand director, who has run it like a start-up, starting with a team of just four.
Product formulations, made with seasoned and young formulators, mix the likes of fermented turmeric extract, vitamin C, marine prebiome and hyaluronic acids.
“It’s around these actives we sculpted the formulas,” said Lebert, adding there was a huge focus on textures, as well.
The brand’s 360-degree approach syncs with the vision of today’s beauty consumer, she continued, explaining MyBlend is to be a pioneer of today’s new vision of luxury. Take for instance, its minimal, streamlined packaging design.
“It’s an extremely clean brand,” said Courtin, highlighting that the eco-conceived packaging eschews almost all plastic. Outer boxes come in recycled and recyclable untreated cardboard.
Lebert called MyBlend “transparent.” Each of the line’s products has a QR code, through which it’s possible to access application methods; information on ingredients, including efficacy; lab test results, and — sometimes — before-and-after shots, Courtin said.
A “transparency map” shows the geographic origin of MyBlend’s products and packaging components. Primary packaging boasts an NFC chip.
“We are the first connected cosmetics,” Lebert claimed.
On the societal front, MyBlend will help support La Maison des Femmes, an organization combatting violence against women.
MyBlend’s philosophy emphasizes the importance of self care, and acknowledges that lifestyle and emotions can affect skin health.
The diagnostic questionnaire asks about subjects such as the skin’s “emotions,” like if it loves water; primary skin concerns, and texture preferences. Results have strengths written in green and weaknesses in red.
“It’s never anxiety-inducing,” Lebert said.
Solutions include personalized product and lifestyle-related suggestions. Three different product options are available: one, for instance, gives four proposals — a cream, two super serums and one ingestible selection. (Up to two to three serums maximum are proposed in a routine.)
Consumers’ ability to try out products has always been key at Groupe Clarins, and that is true for MyBlend, too. The brand has a discovery kit with six products for one week’s worth of treatment, for 50 euros.
Its cordless LED mask, which covers a face and neck, and retails for 970 euros, uses infrared and near-infrared pulsed light. Three settings, to be chosen according to skin tone, correspond to the treatment’s length. For pale skin, for instance, it lasts about five minutes.
Courtesy of MyBlend
As a cure, the mask should be used once every other day for about a month and a half.
“It stimulates the fibroblasts, the collagen — it’s regeneration par excellence that also stimulates the mitochondria and, therefore, energy,” Courtin said.
For MyBlend’s tech and nutricosmetics components, the brand’s executives worked with external experts.
The three different types of ingestibles come in powder form, for glow, regeneration and detox. Thirty sachets retail for 70 euros.
“We propose a new way of living global, personalized beauty,” summed up Lebert.
MyBlend will launch on May 16, on Myblend.com and in two brick-and-mortar locations in France, where people can live the experience: Le Royal Monceau — Raffles in Paris and Thermes-Marins Monte Carlo. In June, it is to be available in Switzerland and Italy, then the rollout plan includes the Hôtel Dieu Intercontinental Marseille in September, the U.K. in early 2023 and the U.S. at the end of that year.
While executives would not discuss projections, industry sources estimate MyBlend will generate first-year retail sales of 15 million euros to 20 million euros.
The brand chose 30 talents to incarnate MyBlend through a podcast, called “Emotions de Peau,” or “Emotions of Skin.”
MyBlend is meant to evolve into a second pillar next to Clarins.
“That’s why we are building it slowly but surely,” Lebert said.
Courtin added: “We are putting a very significant investment in it for the long term.”
FOR MORE, SEE:
Third-generation Family Members to Lead Groupe Clarins
EXCLUSIVE: Ilia Beauty to Be Acquired by Courtin Family
Courtin Family Invests in Pai Skincare
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