Awash in possibility

L'Oreal launches a new hydrotherapy brand with an eye on the Chinese market

A doctor told French dancer Janine Charrat she'd never dance again, following an accident that left 70 percent of her body covered in severe burns in 1961.

But she returned to the ballet stage in Geneva a year later, following four months of treatment at Saint-Gervais-les-Bains.

Saint-Gervais-les-Bains opened as a spa resort in 1807, a year after the discovery of a spring in the hamlet of Fayet in the Saint-Gervais valley at Mont Blanc's foot.

In 2016, L'Oreal acquired the Societe des Thermes de Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and licence to use the Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc brand, aiming to spread its hydrotherapy value and internationalize its products, and now it's planning to bring the brand to China market as its first overseas market.

"The products of Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc fit the expectations of women from all over the world, especially for Chinese women, as it's a pure, natural product that is good for skin health," L'Oreal's chair and CEO, Jean-Paul Agon, says.