PARIS – For the first time, Clarins has extended its largest franchise, Double Serum, into a new product category – foundation.
Double Serum ranks among the top three in the serum category worldwide. It is sold on all continents, transversal in terms of age and estimated by industry sources to generate northward of half a billion euros annually.
“We were really thinking long and hard before getting there,” said Katalin Berenyi, global general manager of Clarins, speaking of the foundation. The starting point for its development was two-fold.
First, after producing Double Serum for 40 years, Clarins has become highly knowledgeable about which actives work in what type of formulas, she explained. Double Serum has a one-third lipidic, two-thirds water proportion.
“Which is always very close to the skin, and it gives a pretty well-balanced equilibrium to the liquid,” Berenyi said.
Double Serum’s two-in-one packaging dispensing technology mixes the two formulas upon each pump for a fresh, high-precision result.
“The second starting point was that for us foundation is not just foundation, it’s always about skin and skinification,” Berenyi said. “It’s what we can give best to the skin.”
Clarins Double Serum Light Texture and Double Serum Foundation
Photo by Romain Lenancker / Courtesy of Clarins
Double Serum Foundation is like skin care with pigments. Clarins approached creating the foundation as it does each new generation of Double Serum, which is now in its ninth, including wide-ranging testing. That product, which contains just 27 ingredients, was initially launched in 1985.
In 2023, Double Serum Light Texture was launched to cater more to men, younger skin and hot climates. That now generates between 10 percent and 15 percent of Double Serum’s sales, according to estimates. There’s also Double Serum Eye, from 2021, with a formula mixing hydro and emulsion properties.
In the foundation formula, with 14 actives, two-thirds is pigmented foundation and the remaining third is the hydro-serum, billed to give a radiance. The foundation comes in 37 shades.
As with the serum, the foundation’s packaging has a dial on top allowing for made-to-measure dosages for customizable, medium-to-full coverage on each application. A Gua Sha-Inspired Foundation Brush rounds out the offer.
In store, Double Serum Foundation has two-pronged retail exposure: It is presented with Clarins makeup products, which includes the Skin Illusion range, as well as with Double Serum.
“We want to test the result,” Berenyi said. But a sure aim is for Double Serum Foundation to be Clarins’ hero product in the complexion category.
A 30-ml. bottle is priced at about 30 euros. The product was first launched in-store in Dubai, followed by Asia and Europe.
“We’ve never done such a hero strategy with something like this in makeup,” Berenyi said. The initial sell-out has been so strong there’s a risk supply might not be able to meet demand everywhere.
The executive would not discuss projections, but industry sources estimate in its first year, Double Serum Foundation could generate around 10 percent to 15 percent of the Double Serum franchise’s overall sales.
