Over the past 20 years, the booming perfume offerings, from masstige to ultra-luxury segments, have come with an unsurprising rise in the demand for outsourced services from diverse client profiles: on the one hand, new players, i.e. beauty, jewelry, and lifestyle brands lacking in-house entities and seeking global support, and on the other, already established and structured brands aiming to outsource some aspects of the value chain. Many emerging and niche brands are also going with the flow. They all share the need for support to provide flexible, skilled services as part of turnkey projects.
Arcade Beauty, from sampling to full-size products
A partner of cosmetics brands and sampling specialist, the Arcade Beauty group acquired the Yves Rocher industrial site in Brittany in 2024. “Initially, we had the Biopack plant in Normandy, which was specialised in perfume sampling. Acquiring this additional industrial site in Brittany represented a strategic step forward. Now, it also makes it possible to broaden our business to all products intended for sale, all sizes included, as a complement to samples,” explains the group’s President Carl Allain.
The site is actually fitted with all production equipment needed – maceration, mixing, preservation in alcohol, storage –, which is directly connected to packaging lines. This way, Arcade puts forward its positioning as an ‘all-rounder’ adapted to all brands’ needs. “We boast the flexibility required to offer different types of solutions to the whole perfume market, including very fast-growing derivatives like Hair and Body Mists,” adds Allain. “We cover packaging sourcing, regulations, formula industrialization, quality control, packaging, and distribution, potentially, with a significant capacity.”
The site can produce 60 million units per year, only a third of which is used right now, in particular by the Yves Rocher brand with which Arcade signed a production agreement for the five years to come.
With its two complementary sites in France, the Arcade Beauty group aims to balance its revenue equally between sampling and retail products. For now, sampling accounts for 70%. “Right now, we can offer all products available on the market from 1 ml to 500 ml, whether they be samples, full sizes, or travel sizes. The latter is in high demand. With our plant in New Jersey, we can also localize production in North America, which is a pretty interesting solution given the rising tariffs,” says Allain.
Lalique Beauty Services, a guarantee of excellence
A subsidiary of the Lalique luxury group, Lalique Beauty Services turned the industrial site of Ury, south of Paris – acquired in 2013 on the former Nina Ricci site – into a model of transformation. Traditionally designed for the group’s brands – Lalique Parfums, Parfums Grès and Samouraï – and its licensed brands – Brioni, Superdry, Jaguar and Bentley Fragrances –, it opened to partner brands a few years ago.
“We have our own production site, and we turned to outsourcing because we had additional capacity. This activity represents 35% of our business now, but we are determined to reach 50%. We work with the Middle East, where clients expect much more flexibility and speed of execution, while in Europe, we need to put the emphasis on rigor of execution, processes and quality, although our being able to handle urgent requests remains key,” explains Baptiste Claeys, Deputy Chief Executive Officer.
Lalique Beauty Services supports partners throughout the perfume industrial value chain, including for component reception, shipping, juice manufacturing, filling, assembly, storage, quality control, regulations and distribution.
“We produce fragrances on automatic, semi-automatic and manual lines for sizes from 5 ml to 300 ml. We also boast an ultra-luxury unit for premium items, which come from the Lalique crystal glass-making factory in Eastern France,” says Claeys.
Although the ultra-luxury part represents a minor share of volumes, it offers a key guarantee of excellence and high-end legitimacy. Which the company intends to highlight: "We are not just a subcontractor, we are an industrial luxury company with trained and skilled teams, robust processes, high-quality requirements and a flexible, agile, perfectly controlled production model,” claims Claeys.
Over the past five years, the site’s average production reached 10 million items per year, with about one third additional capacity available.
“Demand for outsourcing is reaching a plateau in an increasingly competitive market, especially as major players are bringing part of their volumes back in-house. As a result, our priority is to enhance our visibility as a leading industrial partner for the perfume industry. Other than optimizing Lalique’s expertise and developing the group’s brands and licensed brands, we are willing to actively look for new partners in France, as well as on the global scale,” he concludes.
