Premium Beauty News - Bâton Rouge celebrated its second anniversary last December. What is your take on the early stages of this adventure?
Christelle Percheron - The results are very encouraging, with growth of +200% between 2022 and 2023 and a six-figure turnover. We sold more than 10,000 lipsticks in 2023 and more than 4,000 gift cards between the end of November and the end of December 2023. As we have seen, Bâton Rouge is an experience that can be shared: we welcome many duos, groups of girlfriends and even professional events.
Today, our tiny 24 sq. m. boutique, although perfectly optimised, is saturated, as is our booking calendar. There is a two-month waiting list. But as we have some no-shows, it is always possible to try your luck without an appointment and be looked after. We have recently hired an additional make-up artist to meet growing demand, but indeed, it is the opening of a second outlet that will unclog the books and enable us to welcome even more people.
Premium Beauty News - What progress! And so in 2024, a second boutique is due to open in Paris...
Christelle Percheron - Absolutely! We are actively looking for premises in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district that would be three times the size of our first shop in the Marais district. We are hoping to open it this summer, before the 2024 Olympics, otherwise, it will be for next autumn. With this second outlet in Paris, we will be able to welcome a lot more groups of more than five people - for hen parties or birthdays - for which requests are constantly increasing. Today, we have to turn them away. This new venue will also enable us to develop business events (team building, press relations...), which currently account for 10% of our sales.
Premium Beauty News - What is your analysis of lip make-up trends?
Christelle Percheron - What I can say is that in 2023, we sold as many liquid lipsticks as solid ones. We noticed a preference for gloss during the spring-summer season and for matte liquid in autumn-winter. Satin, on the other hand, enjoys constant success all year round. For their creations, around 80% of visitors choose a scented version. The strawberry-blackberry fragrance is by far the most popular! As far as colours are concerned, it is a bit hard to say. What I have noticed is that there are two major trends: on the one hand, red, which is available in an infinite variety of shades, and on the other, nude, to enhance the natural colour of the lips, which is unique to each person.
Premium Beauty News - Are there any innovations in the pipeline?
Christelle Percheron - We will be launching new pearlescent and glitter pigments in September. In addition, ready-to-use lip pencils are under development for release at the end of 2024. We aim to offer pencils with ultra-clean ingredients, just like the rest of our range. We pay particular attention to the sourcing of our ingredients to guarantee formulas with a high percentage of naturalness. Castor oil is the main ingredient in our lipsticks and our fragrances are 100% natural, allergen-free and Ecocert certified. Finally, in terms of service, we are planning to introduce an engraving system for our cases to take personalisation one step further.
Premium Beauty News - What are your future areas of development?
Christelle Percheron - Our ambition is to become the standard for made-to-measure lipsticks in Europe. To this end, we plan to open our first boutique outside France next year, in London; we will start looking in September, focusing our efforts in the Covent Garden area. Milan is also a priority for us and it will probably be the city chosen for our fourth opening.
In addition, we are currently working on the design of a moulding machine with 500 cavities, to offer series of hand-made lipsticks to a B-to-B clientele. We have already received several requests from brands in the ready-to-wear, hygiene and food sectors to create a series of lipsticks personalised with their brand image in small quantities.
Our packaging suppliers are very agile, which means we can offer, in addition to the choice of the grape or liquid colour, a customised pack by changing its colour, for example, or by integrating a logo to take co-creation to the limit.
