Pure gold: French-Australian indie brand La Fervance debuts clean beauty face mask

Launched in December 2019 after several years of planning and development, La Fervance’s multi-mask debut product Eclat Extraordinaire was made in France using natural and COSMOS-certified active ingredients sourced from Australia and Europe, such as wild rosella, mountain pepper, hyaluronic acid and gold dust. Carrying a flurry of beauty claims related to skin elasticity, hydration and toning, the glass packaged product was currently available online, in a handful of select stores and beauty institutes throughout France and most recently launched across the Skins Cosmetics network in Belgium, Netherlands and South Africa and SkinLife in Portugal.

Brick and mortar beauty power – ‘it’s such a sensorial product’​

Speaking to CosmeticsDesign-Europe, Mélissa Obeid, founder of La Fervance, said the company had big expansion plans, particularly in the premium physical retail space.

“I think brick and mortar is proving to be successful because when people see and touch the product, they are instantly drawn to the texture and also the perfumes that have been developed for us in Grasse,”​ Obeid said.

“…Specialty stores will certainly represent the brand – you have that cultural fit,”​ she said.

La Fervance would “always be premium”,​ she said, though it could also be carried in mass retail that had the right brand values.

“…Within the next three years, I’d like to see La Fervance represented in key, culturally-aligned brick and mortar stores on all the continents. Is that too ambitious? I don’t think so.”​

Beyond a physical retail expansion strategy, Obeid said the brand would also continue its push online because there was also “a lot of scope”​ for creating online experiences that provided consumers with a strong connection to and understanding of the product. Though she added: “Nothing can replace that brick and mortar experience. That will always be a strong point for La Fervance because it’s such a sensorial product.”​

Global clean beauty goals – Australia, Asia and the US​

Obeid said that over the next few months and years, La Fervance was “definitely looking at being a global brand”,​ with Australia, Asia and the US obvious markets. 

“We have a whole range of products that will follow, but the range will never get too big. We’re all about quality, not quantity – less is more. When you have products that are highly active and have proven results, you don’t need a huge collection.”​

Eclat Extraordinaire would always be “the iconic product”​ that aimed to be the basis of any skin care ritual, she said, because it could be used in a variety of ways – as a morning or night-time face mask, mixed into face creams or even worn under foundation for extra glow.

“I don’t believe we should push consumers to use a whole collection from a particular brand. I know from a brand’s point of view it’s more lucrative to do so, but I think we need to be realistic that consumers have favourite products from different brands.”​

Asked who the target consumer was for this luxury clean product, she said: “The target audience is the savvy, discerning beauty consumer.”​

The brand appealed to luxury skin care consumers looking for sustainable and authentic alternatives, she said, but also those who were considered “clean beauty addicts”​ in search of excellence or those simply open to discovering new products.

Defining clean beauty and building parameters​

On the topic of the definition of ‘clean beauty’, Obeid said: “I think it is necessary to have some parameters around what the term clean beauty means; it’s far too ambiguous. This is why I’ve developed what my definition of clean beauty is.”​

For La Fervance, she said clean beauty embodied aspects like minimal plastic, organic and COSMOS-certified, ethical supply chains and 100% natural and traceable ingredients.

“Not all synthetic ingredients are dangerous; by all means, they’re not. But for me with La Fervance, I wanted every aspect of the brand offering – packaging and province – to fit in with my definition of clean beauty.”​

“…This is a process in which my husband Jamie and I have dedicated our lives to for four years. This has been an extraordinary journey. We’ve invested our lives and personal funding into it, and in order to do that we had to be very confident in what we were doing and why,”​ she said.

CosmeticsDesign recently launched its debut global video series on Clean and Ethical Beauty, digging into everything related to why the movement matters, formulation, marketing and the future. You can kick-start your catch up by watching the first episode here.​