Anne Karagoz, Coptis

Premium Beauty News - It all began one day of 1999, you set off on a big adventure, you are only 33 years old.

Anne Karagoz - It’s true! I start all by myself. The idea is simple but not necessarily easy to implement. It consists in setting up a database of active cosmetic ingredients. At the time, no such thing existed on the market.

Premium Beauty News - Why Coptis?

Anne Karagoz - Actually, I went through several phases in my quest for a name... It started with Cosmetic Data then Advisance to end up finally with this name derived from a Chinese herb, Coptis. It was simple, spoke for itself, and was evocative too. That’s all.

Premium Beauty News - The beginnings were difficult?

Anne Karagoz - Rather difficult, yes! Because from the concept to the realization of this type of database, needless to say that there was a long way to go! It was of course necessary to develop the entire architecture and interface. We had to contact and visit each of the suppliers of raw materials. Initially, I suggested they paid to be part of this database, but very quickly I realized that this approach was not credible. To insure that a majority of suppliers became members, we had to offer free membership and get the user instead to pay to access the database.

Premium Beauty News - How did the suppliers welcome this approach?

Anne Karagoz - They were delighted! Anyhow, there was never any blockage, on the contrary. In May 2001, the database contains several hundred of materials. In parallel, Coptis Lab sees the light and soon a few large customers place their trust in us. And I take the opportunity here, to thank them once again. These companies are Guinot, Inter Cosmétiques, Clarins, Cartier...

Premium Beauty News - Today, Coptis Lab is your flagship product? But it is not the only one.

Anne Karagoz - Coptis Lab is indeed our flagship product. It enables the cosmetic industry to efficiently manage its development projects, to reduce time to market and to improve the quality and reliability of information. Our teams of cosmetic chemists and of IT specialists ensure the continuous improvement of our products through our cosmetic expertise, our Users Club or the direct recommendations of our clients. In addition to our applications, we provide services with high added value enhancing their performance that include a documentary database describing more than 10 000 cosmetic raw materials, developed through partnerships with ingredients suppliers, a Coptis Lab integrated regulatory database elaborated through our regulatory groups and based on our clients’ expertise. Coptis Lab is a software specially designed for laboratories specialised in cosmetic formulation. It integrates the different development phases of a cosmetic formula, from the marketing brief to the compilation of the regulatory file.

Coptis Lab is also meant for quality control laboratories.

Coptis Ingredients identifies and describes more than 10 000 cosmetic raw materials under about thirty headings essential to formulators and regulatory departments (raw material presentation, functional classification, cosmetic properties, chemical nature, main origins, date of placing on the market, solubility, preserving agents, specifications, formulation conditions, applications, incompatibilities, percentage of use, storage conditions, shelf life, INCI names, regulatory restrictions, CAS and EINECS numbers, efficacy and toxicological data...). MSDS, product files and standard formulations are also accessible as electronic files. Raw materials are listed by manufacturer in order to guarantee unicity of information. Distributors are indicated for each country.

Premium Beauty News - A success which seems to have even crossed national borders? In any case, in 2008 you have the feeling that you must cross the Atlantic Ocean So much so that now you live over there!

Anne Karagoz - It’s true! Intuitively, I quickly have the feeling that we need to set foot in North America where there is no offer in this area. Meanwhile, we set up a network of agents in Europe, especially in Italy, Spain and Germany. Our first steps in the U.S. date back to 2009. Today, I’m working there with three colleagues. We are twelve in France. It is really not a problem to manage everything from New York.

Premium Beauty News - You are obviously driven by the spiralling evolution of legislation on cosmetics in the world.

Anne Karagoz - This is a good spur, indeed, for our customers and therefore for us. And the new cosmetic regulation that will be put in place in 2013 in Europe is not unrelated to this.

Premium Beauty News - Any other projects in sight?

Anne Karagoz - Yes, a lot!