Biologique Recherche, the skincare brand Glossier wants to be, and how it was created for one woman
- Since releasing its P50 lotion in 1970, Biologique Recherche has gained a global following and is the yardstick many other brands compare themselves to
- Creative head Philippe Allouche, son of the brand’s founders, explains its origins, why he likes copycats and the importance of application techniques
In a crowded beauty market where new brands and products launch on what seems like a daily basis, Biologique Recherche, a decades-old French skincare brand, still manages to stand out from the crowd. Its signature product, the P50 lotion, even consistently holds strong as a social-media darling, despite having been created almost 50 years ago.
Much has changed in the years since the brand was created by the parents of current creative head Philippe Allouche, whose father was a product formulator and mother was a physiotherapist with deep knowledge of craniosacral techniques.
“The company was not really created for doing business. My father really created the first product for my mother. When he created the P50, it was only for her,” Allouche says.
“At that time there were only harsh exfoliation [products], and he felt that the skin was undergoing changes because of the environment and stress – [though] not as much stress as today because this was the ’70s. He thought we should not go so harsh with our exfoliators, we should go milder and exfoliate daily. So he created the first P50.”
Back then, the P50 was revolutionary. Allouche has since tinkered with the recipe substantially and re-released it in 2000. Phenol, a key active compound – now banned in Europe because of safety concerns – has been replaced with milder and on-trend alpha- and beta-hydroxy acids (though a P50 “1970” version is still sold outside Europe for those who remain enamoured with the stronger exfoliant).
“When I redid the formula, I integrated a new vision [focused on] interacting with new challenges: pollution, food, stress,” Allouche says. “There is a very special way of doing the product – we leave the formula to sit for five days at a very low stirring pace, like a perfume. Nobody does a product in five days – even a cream is only two days. This is probably the only laboratory where you have classical music [played] for the ingredients, and nobody is allowed to shout, or they are out of the company. It’s a rule to preserve the harmony between the ingredients and the people around the ingredients.”
Though the product has spawned many copycats, Allouche is confident that nobody is dedicating the same care and time to the formulation. In fact, what these other products are doing, in many ways, is boosting recognition of Biologique Recherche.
Take Glossier, the beauty brand beloved by millennials that boasts over two million Instagram followers, compared with Biologique Recherche’s current 74,000. When it launched its exfoliating Solution lotion, it compared it to the P50 1970 in its Instagram Stories.
“My partners had a meeting with the Glossier owner – I wasn’t sure why she wanted to meet us,” Allouche says, shrugging. “And my partners said to her, what are you trying to do, are you doing marketing for us? Glossier said they are very similar. ‘We complement Biologique Recherche’s products.’ This is stupid.”
Allouche pays them no mind. “We have a cult clientele of bloggers that are talking about us and we see all these young people asking extremely clever questions. Thirty-five per cent of our clientele globally are under 30 years old. And this is an extremely expensive product for them, but they are very serious.”
While the P50, which now comes in several incarnations tailored for different skin types, is by far the brand’s most well-known product, it is but an entryway into the cult of Biologique Recherche.
“Let’s say 80 per cent of people were using P50 before the rest of the brand’s products. It’s a way to enter our skincare line. Maybe 25 to 30 per cent of [a person’s skin] results come from P50. You still have results because it’s an exfoliator – there’s a protective agent, free radicals, moisturising, boosters, all kinds of different ingredients,” Allouche says.
“The idea behind the brand is to rebuild the capabilities of the epidermis to defend itself. To be what it is, your last fortress. Unfortunately with all the exfoliation, deep peels and laser treatments [modern people are doing now], they are making that very fine structure thinner and thinner and won’t be capable of defending themselves. So the idea is to rebuild.”
The application techniques are also very important, he emphasises. “I’d say it’s 50-50 importance along with the products. We have very special gestures, coming from that heritage of craniosacral [therapy], reflexology, shiatsu, all these things that my mother taught me.”
In Hong Kong, Biologique Recherche treatments are available at the Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong spa. The spa recently launched its Skin Perfector Facial using Biologique Recherche products, aimed specifically at boosting and brightening. Several times a year, trainers visit the hotel to ensure that the brand’s high standards are being adhered to.
“We have 36 trainers based in Paris, plus each country has trainers,” Allouche says. “We are not investing in advertising, we are not investing in marketing, we are investing a lot in training. And we have also quality control, we have mystery shoppers, all kinds of different ways to test our centres to be sure that they are complying with the high standards of the company. This is the way of keeping the standards of the company.
“Sometimes some countries don’t respect it, and we close their account. This year in the US we closed 10 accounts.
“There’s no product we can do that can do miracles. But [through] treatments we can do a lot of things. We [do half the face first] and show the half face to the client and you see extremely visible results. You need to have techniques with the products to get results.”
