Mane and Pearl Fisher Aiming for Perfection

NEW YORK — Fragrance supplier Mane is rolling out a business model designed to provide branding and product development services for beauty marketers.

Perfect Sense, as the initiative is called, targets both retailers interested in private label and branded marketers looking to create product lines, according to Michel Mane, president of Mane USA, based in Wayne, N.J. Perfect Sense touches on multiple elements, including the formation of an original idea, fragrance creation and packaging design — all within the personal care, hair care and home fragrance categories.

Highlighted by a joint venture between Mane and creative consultancy Pearl Fisher, Perfect Sense fuses Mane’s core formulation business with Pearl Fisher’s packaging, branding and market research services — elements such as those that went into beverage brand Absolut Vanilla.

“It’s about knocking down walls that exist in the product development process,” said Mane, pointing to industry concerns like speed-to-market and cost efficiency. He added that the idea is to “focus on and be forward-thinking about where [clients] want to take a brand.” He believes a strong focus on point-of-sale by beauty marketers today has led to increased outsourcing of product development and other tasks.

Mane, the $300 million parent company based in Bar sur Loup, France, developed Perfect Sense within the past year. While it now targets the U.S. and Europe, plans call for the venture to be rolled out to Asia next year.