The skincare market is a huge market. Bigger than one might think at first glance. Globally, this industry is worth billions of dollars every year. This industry is so big that you probably even know someone who uses skincare products regularly as part of their routine.
One thing that many people don’t realize is just how much French skincare is really changing the entire industry. Many French skincare companies regularly flip the script on other skincare companies, and it’s actually a pretty interesting phenomenon to hear about if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
The French have a long track record of revolutionizing entire industries. The French are typically considered to be very creative people as well as very progress forward people. You can see it in the way that the French act on a daily basis, and on T.V. and in films.
So, today we’re going to be looking at how exactly the French are once again shaking up the world of skincare, and why it matters for every single skincare product user worldwide. There’s a lot to know about how the French are accomplishing this, so let’s take a look.
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The French Spirit
Throughout history, people have been very well aware of all of the contributions that the French have had for society as a whole. The French are consistently considered to be highly cultured people, tastemakers, and generally good about adding to the global conversation. What kind of things have they contributed to? Let’s take a look:
- Fine art
- Cheese
- Wine
- High fashion
- Sculptures
- Language
- Manners
- Ideologies
- Minimalism
There’s a lot more that the French have added to society, and you can see the French inspirations all over the place in the world. Even in places that you might not have expected to see them.
For example, did you know that the French were actually the ones to create the statue of liberty? It was gifted to the United States in 1886 and has been one of our most easily recognizable symbols ever since. That’s pretty impressive no matter how you cut it.
The French have one big reason why they’ve been able to have such a chokehold on the culture of the world, and that’s their simple philosophy. In French, they would say “moins est plus,” which translates to “less is more,” for those of us that don’t speak French.
You can see this attitude in everything that the French do. When you look at a painting by Claude Monet or a blouse by Christian Dior, it’s always dripping with this idea that you don’t need more than you really need, and that’s what makes it work so well.
The idea isn’t to break everything down to its barest components but to make sure that you aren’t using anything that doesn’t need to be used. The French often consider unnecessary things to be superfluous, and as such, they do what they can to avoid this at nearly any cost.
This translates well into their skincare products because of the fact that they don’t use any ingredients that don’t need to be used. Every French skincare product is designed with a purpose in mind, and they do their best to not overstate any ingredient in any product on the market.
Products with fewer ingredients are usually better because your skin has an easier time absorbing the nutrients. Because of this, you can worry a lot less about it. Just apply the products in the way that they’re supposed to be and move on with your day, it’s that easy.
The Competitive Nature of the French Skincare Market
The skincare market in general is already pretty cutthroat. As we mentioned, the skincare industry is worth billions of dollars a year. There are plenty of companies competing to get the majority of that money for themselves, which makes the whole market very competitive.
Companies that can operate in this competitive market can’t hope to thrive on a global stage. Companies are looking for ways to get as much money as possible every year, and it can be hard to find your niche when there are so many established companies vying for the market already.
France takes this competitive market one step further in a pretty ingenious way, but in order to understand this, you have to first understand how French pharmacies operate. If you’re reading this from most parts of the world, there’s a good chance that you’re used to things like CVS pharmacies all over the place.
Let’s look at how French pharmacies operate so you can fully understand why their skincare market is even more competitive than the global market:
- Pharmacies are owned by pharmacists.
- Each pharmacist can only own one pharmacy.
- Every single product in the pharmacy is reviewed by the owner.
- There are no chain pharmacies.
- French pharmacies have a tendency to prefer all-natural products.
You might already be able to see why the French skincare market is so competitive, but just in case you haven’t pieced it together, let’s break it down for you so we all understand.
Let’s say you’re making a skincare product in France. Maybe it’s a special hand cream. First, you’d need to research the ingredients to make the product so you can make it as effective as possible. That’s normal for any market, so you’d be expected to do this no matter what country you’re in.
After you have your formula together, you’d have to get it into pharmacies. You could, of course, sell it online but most French people are going to pharmacies for their skincare products because they know that an expert is looking at the products before they get them.
So, you’d need to show a pharmacist your hand cream. They’d have to take a look at the ingredients and test the ingredients themself so that they could be sure that it would actually be good enough for consumers to use on a daily basis, and good enough for their shelves.
If the pharmacist decides that it is good enough, good news. You can expect to start selling your hand cream in their pharmacy and building up a customer base. This is great news, you can expect to start being profitable in most cases after this happens.
On the other hand, if the pharmacist decides that it isn’t good enough for their pharmacy, it won’t go up on shelves. That means that you won’t even get your foot in the door for your home market. You can always try again at other pharmacies, but not getting onto the pharmacy shelf can mean massive losses.
The Expertise France Has to Offer
Knowing what you’re talking about is important. If a telemarketer called you and didn’t know what they were talking about, the odds of you buying whatever they were selling would be a lot lower than if they did know what they were talking about. Being knowledgeable is just very important.
Maybe that was a bad example, most people patently ignore telemarketer calls, but you get our point. If you don’t know what you’re doing in any industry, you’re probably not going to be able to make very good products for your customer base, and eventually, fail because of this.
France, on top of everything else that we’ve mentioned, just so happens to be an expert on skincare. The French have been working on skincare products for decades and decades at this point in time, which lends them a high level of credibility.
In fact, France had one of the first skincare laboratories in the world and they have been studying proper skincare since the 1960s, and every other day another solid company pops up that uses the collective expertise of the country to make better and better products.
Most of the French skincare market actually started off with injectable skincare products that were made by doctors that specialized in the skin. As time has gone on, the understanding that making sure that people have something they can use daily is just as important as routine aesthetic doctor visits.
At this point in time, the French have a very good idea of what ingredients work and what doesn’t. They use this expertise to make products that work time and time again. Because of this, France has earned a reputation in the skincare community as a country that can be trusted.
The French Way
It can be hard to see how the French are revolutionizing the skincare market on a global scale if you don’t know what exactly they’re doing, but they are certainly changing things for the better all the time for customers all around the entire world.
If you use skincare products and have been looking for something new to try, why not put your skin into the hands of the people who take this industry the most seriously and have been for decades now? The French will only continue to revolutionize the skincare market for the betterment of skincare routines worldwide.