L’Oréal and Chemspeed have recently blown-out 5 candles on their tight collaboration in the cosmetic field.
Five years ago, L’Oréal approached Chemspeed to develop a high-output automated workstation for the formulation and optimization of their skin care and hair care products. This instrument, the FORMAX, was developed according to L’Oréal’s requirements and was successfully installed in December 2008 in Aulnay-sous-Bois (France). The configuration of the workstation, tailored to L’Oréal’s specifications, includes 2 sets of 12 formulation vessels and 5 robotic tools, which allows L’Oréal to run up to 24 parallel formulations per campaign.
According to L’Oréal, Chemspeed immediately stood out from the various suppliers evaluated. Chemspeed was the only vendor that delivered the proof of concept in a rapid and robust manner.
With the FORMAX, L’Oréal can dispense every ingredient used in the cosmetic industry (from liquids, through viscous liquids, to high viscous materials and waxes) and can do so WHILE mixing & scraping, heating, refluxing and cooling. This was immediately recognized as a unique capability, not found in any other automated solutions, and a key requirement in the formulation world.
Today, the team led by Dr. Mireille Arnaud-Roux from L’Oréal is running the system at full capacity. It is fully booked at least 3 months in advance so that the idea of multiplying the FORMAX to other sites is now being discussed.
Chemspeed offers a large range of automated workflow solutions for sample preparation, synthesis, process research, formulation, application and testing; additionally the company continuously develops new tools and features to best serve its customers. L’Oréal was actually one of the first adopters of the new Overhead Gravimetric Dispensing tool for Powders and the Overhead Gravimetric Dispensing tool for Waxes, which are extremely important for the cosmetic industry.
About L'Oréal
L’Oréal, the world’s leading cosmetics company, has catered to all forms of beauty in the world for over 100 years and has built an unrivalled portfolio of 23 international, diverse and complementary brands. With sales amounting to 19.5 billion euros in 2010, L’Oréal is present in 130 countries and employs 66,600 people. Regarding sustainable development, Corporate Knights, a Global Responsible Investment Network, has selected L'Oréal for its 2011 ranking of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World. L'Oréal has received this distinction for the 4th consecutive year.
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