The creams designed by Amandine Colle and Caroline Picard smell of the Cévennes. These two entrepreneurs from Alès (Gard) have created a range of cosmetic products, whose active ingredients have the particularity of being resources from the Cévennes region. their brand, Belesa (“Beauty”, in Occitan), thus produces floral waters with chestnut, scrubs with Reinette du Vigan apple juice, balms with walnut and sweet almond oil or soaps with olive oil. Picholine olives.
This idea germinated almost seven years ago, in the minds of these two Gardoises. “We met in an organic cosmetics laboratory, in which we both worked, confides Amandine Colle, who was a product formulator, within this structure. We were at a time in our lives, both of us, where we wanted to evolve differently, to do something different. Quickly, the desire to use local products brought the two entrepreneurs together. “That was our idea, notes Caroline Picard. Promote the Cévennes, which is our native land. »
“Live with local producers”
Then follows a marathon of several months, “locked up at Caroline’s”, smiles Amandine Colle, to imagine the first Belesa products. “These are mouth-watering ingredients… Which we put in beauty products! It’s very rare to find food-grade ingredients in cosmetics,” says the formulator. The duo thus works “directly with local producers, notes his colleague. These are very high quality raw materials. Olive oil, for example, is made by a small producer in the Cévennes, with olives that grow in the sun, cold pressed in a mill. On the skin, of course, there is a big, big difference. »
And inevitably, some producers in the Cévennes were somewhat surprised when they arrived. “Some people wondered, ‘What do they want? They’re a little crazy, those two!’ laughs Amandine Colle. But, at the same time, the producers found it interesting, to value their products differently. »
“A little fame”
Of course, the small cans of oil purchased in the Cévennes by Belesa are a little more expensive than the astronomical quantities ordered by the major cosmetic brands. But the entrepreneurs manage to offer their products at prices similar to those charged in pharmacies. Why ? “Because we do the graphic design, the marketing, the muses ourselves,” continues Caroline Picard. This allows us to put the package in the quality of our ingredients. Ecological awareness is also in the overall design of products. The tubes, made from recyclable sugar cane waste, come from a manufacturer in the Gers, the closest that the two entrepreneurs have found.
And, little by little, the Cévennes brand is making “a small reputation, rejoices Caroline Picard. We have a loyal clientele. From around twenty points of sale when the brand was launched, the Gard company now has 160. “We are very established in the Cévennes, it’s a choice on our part, continues the entrepreneur. But we are starting to export ourselves, in particular through our site, and certain shops or pharmacies, which are starting to contact us. »