Democratizing dermatology and health care is a key proponent of growing L’Oréal’s Dermatological Beauty division, which houses CeraVe, SkinCeuticals, La Roche-Posay and SkinBetter Science, said Christina Fair, the division’s president.
“We think about one of our missions and one of our purposes as creating access to health care professionals,” Fair said. “We work closely with them, we work with our consumers, but we’re also working behind the scenes to create access. How do we ensure that low-income areas have access to a dermatologist, and to recommendations for skin health?”
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In recent years, that’s included partnering with the Skin of Color Society, as well as Howard University. “There’s so many components — from actual dermatologists being diverse to having enough studies to understand how skin diseases show up on darker skin tones. You can’t even use AI across all skin tones because there’s not enough data to accurately detect [disease] on darker skin tones.”
Democratizing expert-driven knowledge — and products that bear that seal of approval — is a mandate that’s pervaded much of Fair’s career. After a stint in finance and six years at Avon, she moved to Kinerase, which was then owned by Valeant Pharmaceuticals. “It was a dermatology brand, and I helped break into Sephora, QVC and more retail. Then, 15 years ago, I went back to L’Oréal.”
Though Fair first worked on Garnier and Maybelline, which falls under the giant’s Consumer Products division, she came over to what was then called the Active Cosmetics division to work as the vice president for global development on SkinCeuticals. “I had never done anything like that before. That’s a part of L’Oréal — you’re able to take these leaps into positions and functions that you haven’t done before, and there’s a lot of support.”
After being promoted to SkinCeuticals’ general manager in 2019, she was promoted to her current role, where she’s driven growth both on individual brands and of the portfolio overall, including the acquisition of SkinBetter Science last year. “The growth for us goes back to the core of what we’ve always focused on. No one can replicate our relationships with doctors. We touch dermatologists, plastic surgeons, pediatricians, pharmacists. We essentially touch 60,000 health care professionals that in turn recommend our brands, because they work.”
That’s extended to communications, especially given the advent of DermTok, the TikTok realm with dermatologists-turned-influencers. “There are now health care professionals on TikTok; they have quite a bit of influence. We have a true partnership with them, and there’s a lot of advocacy and influence around our brands. It’s beyond going to the doctor and getting that recommendation, and that translates to retail and our relationships with pharmacists,” Fair said.
That bodes well for the next generation of consumers. “Our consumers are super smart, they research everything,” Fair said. “They have access to everything — they know if your clinicals are right, if your ingredients are true. That goes a long way for our growth, our trust and our loyalty. Acquisitions help our growth… We’ll have one third of the market between SkinCeuticals and SkinBetter Science.”