How it started

At L’Oréal, more than one billion Euro is invested yearly in Research & Innovation (R&I) with the aim to invent and revolutionize the beauty of the future.

Since L’Oréal has a strong commitment to keeping the consumer at the center of its innovation efforts, the U.S. L’Oréal R&I team was looking for a solution that allows consumers to become co-developers of all product innovations. This means the team wants to get prototypes in front of consumers as quickly as possible to gather relevant feedback, making sure that input is directly shared with the labs and scientists responsible for product development.

How we inspired change

Since March 2021, we have been running an online community for the U.S. L’Oréal R&I team. The Beauty Co-Lab gathers over 1,200 highly engaged participants that are interested in beauty products, ranging from haircare to skincare to makeup and all dimensions in between (such as product fragrances).

Through a variety of research activities, consumers are actively co-creating products with the labs: they test make-up, skincare, or haircare prototypes over several days or weeks to guide L’Oréal’s scientists on areas of improvement.

How it lives on

Today, the Beauty Co-Lab has become a cornerstone of L’Oréal’s product development process. The speed and agility of the community approach match the needs of rapid product innovation, getting more products into the hands of more consumers. Prototypes can be quickly shipped out and reviewed by participants, providing detailed findings back to the labs in as little as three weeks.

L’Oréal and Human8 have been recognized for this partnership with a 2022 Quirk’s Award for Client/Supplier Collaboration.