L'Oreal

“I realize that as a group of people within this world, African American people, historically, we have less experience with generational wealth. We may be successful in certain areas, we may have become rich recently, but we don't really know what generational …”

“And typically when you sell to a larger conglomerate, it's because you need more distribution. Because the benefit of having, you know, being a L'Oreal or an Estee Lauder company or something like that is that they have the This vast network of retailers.”

“By the time we were acquired by L'Oreal, we had about 42 employees.”

“A lot of people think that you know, you're not doing so well, so they pick you up for a song, and it doesn't work that way. You have to be profitable, you have to be doing well, you have to have good profit margins, and they have to see growth coming from you…”

“Shuyu Amora, which was owned by L'Oreal, had been pulled out of the market and shut down.”

“L'Oreal had always been the arch enemy because of testing on animals. They represented those who wished to test, body shop represented those that didn't wish to test.”

“Most companies, like the huge companies, the L'Oreal's of the world, they pretty much had a monopoly on the molds market. So there was, from my understanding, and this is in 2012, there were only a couple of suppliers in the U.S. Who made molds, and the bigges…”

“All of these independent brands were purchased by L'Oreal, by Estee Lauder, and Shiseido. So, overnight, we were then in business with the big companies, and that did two things for us. It provided a wall around us for new entrants, because the indie brands di…”

“So, most companies, like the huge companies, the L'Oreal's of the world, they pretty much had a monopoly on the molds market. So there was, from my understanding, and this is in 2012, there were only a couple of suppliers in the U.S. Who made molds, and the bi…”

“And then hair companies started coming after me and L'Oreal wanted me to work with them with their Garnier line and Bumble and Bumble were there. And then all of a sudden a lot of companies, Unilever I worked with. To help out with their product line in Latin …”

“Yeah, one of the secrets of beauty is that you make your money in the repeat. You don't actually make as much of your money in the first time trial, and so the big three in beauty, LVMH, L'Oreal, and Estee Lauder, win on creating products that have enough love…”

“That was the problem in the early days, that you had a few incumbents that owned a bunch of brands and controlled all the space at retail. So you had L'Oreal, which was L'Oreal and Maybelline. You had P and G, which owned cover girl at the time. So there was n…”

“Revlon launched a brand called Vital Radiance. Now you probably don't remember, ever heard of it. And L'Oreal launched a brand called Hip to compete with Mac. And the major premise of both those brands was we are going to sell more expensive cosmetics in the d…”

“L'Oreal came through with the best offer. They offered us about two hundred and twenty five million dollars for the whole company, and we were very excited at that point, and we were ready to sign, and now this is lock, stock, and barrel.”