On pharmacy shelves, certain beauty brands seem to have always existed. However, behind a cult dry oil, a curl jelly or a clean routine, we find intimate stories. In a market dominated by giants, these indie brands driven by their founders impose their name: one started with €1,500 in her kitchen, another opened more than sixty spas, a third transformed a skin disease into a life project.
These paths have one thing in common: Aliza Jabès at Nuxe, Sarah Brown for Pai, Kelly Massol with Les Secrets de Loly or even Marie Drago at Gallinée first wanted to solve their own problem. Pharmacist at heart, hyper-reactive skin, forgotten textured hair or poorly understood microbiome: each story is born from a lack. Their brands show how an intuition fueled by science or an engaged community can shake up the established codes of French beauty.
Nuxe: how Aliza Jabès brought sensoriality into pharmacy
In 1989, a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, Aliza Jabès bought Nuxe, a natural cosmetology laboratory, on the advice of her pharmacist father. She wanted to transform the pharmacy, then very clinical, into a place of pleasure. In 1991, she launched Huile Prodigieuse, which she imagined for pregnant women, easy to use and ultra-sensory for the face, body and hair. Then came Rêve de Miel lip balm, Crème Fraîche de Beauté, a first spa on rue Montorgueil in 2002, more than sixty spas today and more than forty patents: proof that galenic pleasure and high performance can be combined.
Pai: Sarah Brown, from chronic urticaria to committed clean beauty
Sarah Brown achieves beauty through constraint. This Los Angeles-based communicator develops chronic hives that doctors can’t explain. She keeps a diary of what she eats, dissects the composition of her treatments and identifies substances that she no longer wants on her skin. Back in London, in 2007 she created Pai, “beneficial” in Maori, with organic, vegan and concentrated formulas, derived from biotechnology and green chemistry. She set up factory and offices in the same premises in West London, has sat on the board of directors of Cosmetic Executive Women since 2015 and is leading a skincare education campaign for young girls.
The Secrets of Loly and Gallinée: Kelly Massol and Marie Drago give a voice to the forgotten
Raised by her grandmother then placed in foster care at 15, Kelly Massol launched the Boucles et Cotons forum at the age of 21 to support women with textured hair. She makes shea and jojoba treatments at home, which are quickly adopted by this community. In 2009, in her kitchen and with only €1,500 of capital, she created Les Secrets de Loly; the brand becomes leader in its category and fourth hair brand sold in pharmacies.
Another very personal trajectory, doctor of pharmacy Marie Drago, founder of Gallinée, recounts a decisive step: the diagnosis of pyoderma gangrenosum, an inflammatory skin disease of autoimmune origin, which led her to become interested in the microbiome. “I went back to university, did my thesis on probiotics for the skin, which I patented and used to create my formulas.” Its microbiome treatments, like those of Loly, directly extend the experience of their creator.
Stories that remind us that behind certain brands there is much more than marketing. Personal stories and experiences, which give another vision of beauty.