JAPAN: South Korean pop band Kara and its exclusive fragrance partner, 3CY, have collaborated with CPL Aromas to formulate its first signature fragrance, KARA 5 Jewel, aka K5J.
K5J debuted exclusively at selected retail stores and outlets in Japan on April 14 with distribution to follow in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, Macau, Malaysia and Thailand scheduled over the summer.
Kara has sold more than 1.18 million albums in Japan.
More info: www.kara5jewel.com
L’Oréal Inaugurates Global Hair Research Center, Honored by Ethisphere
• FRANCE: L’Oréal has inaugurated its Global Hair Research Centre located in Paris Saint-Ouen. The Center’s Research & Innovation (R&I) programs are exclusively dedicated to the hair care profession, which includes hair coloring, hair care (shampoos, conditioners), styling (sprays, gels, waxes) and perms, smoothing or straightening, according to the beauty giant.
The 100-million-euro investment is one of the largest investments in L’Oréal’s R&I history. The center hosts 500 employees, including chemists, physic-chemists, opticians, materials scientists, metrologists, rheologists, computer scientists and statisticians.
To support the innovation flow, ambitious and effective tools allow researchers to explore more broadly the endless possibilities offered by the science of formulation and evaluation. For example, robots mimic product applications on hair or prepare timesaving formulae. Thus to date the automatic weighing robot has weighed nearly one million coloring samples for approximately 100,000 formulae that require testing, according to the company.
Original numerical modeling tools using already acquired data, evaluate virtual formulae so that only those most likely to meet consumer needs are to be developed. And besides their scientifically proven technical efficacy, products also generate emotions. So 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, said L’Oréal.
All the information thus collected in this Global Centre and the six regional centers, is fed back into the hair innovation processes.
The Saint Ouen Research Center is the head of a global network of six R&I regional centers, which are located in Japan, China, India, US, Brazil and in Saint-Ouen for Europe.
The six regional hair centers also have a dual mission: interpreting the innovation strategies identified by the Saint Ouen Research Centre and tailoring them to the specific features of their markets as well as inventing new products that meet local consumers’ needs. These local innovations may also be internationalized via a “reverse innovation” deployment process, according to L’Oréal.
In other news, L’Oréal was recognized as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute. This is the third time that L’Oréal has been recognized for promoting the highest of ethical standards.
Ethisphere Institute is a leading international think-tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability. This is the sixth year Ethisphere has published the WME rankings.
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