When Vichy’s global brand president Jamel Boutiba joined the brand last month, his ambition was clear: for Vichy to hit the €1 billion revenue mark by the end of year.

To get there, the brand is going after the men’s category, expanding beyond skincare and into supplements, and speaking directly to each market. But with growing competition in the science-backed skincare space, and K-beauty’s second coming capturing significant market share, Boutiba has his work cut out.

“The challenges in reaching [€1 billion] over the past few years have involved a highly competitive market and the length of time required to establish a new positioning while rolling out successful innovations, backed by engaging activations across all our zones and countries,” Boutiba tells Vogue Business exclusively. “I’m confident in what we are putting in place this year to keep growing, and this includes our geographical expansion. But our main focus remains the growth of our haircare franchise, Dercos, which is experiencing double-digit growth.”

Vichy was launched in 1931 by French dermatologist Dr. Prosper Haller, who became known for the mineral-infused skincare that’s been adapted by other cosmetic brands, and collagen-boosting products that the brand first brought to market in 1996. L’Oréal Group acquired the label in 1980, but prior to that, the group entered a commercial agreement with Vichy in 1954, marking its first foray into dermatological skincare. By the time of acquisition, L’Oréal Group had strengthened its position in the health-focused cosmetics market.

L’Oréal Group doesn’t break out individual brand revenues, but its dermatological beauty division, which Vichy is a part of, has been growing for three consecutive years, according to the company. And the brand says it is close to reaching the $1 billion mark. In 2023, the group reported 28.4% like-for-like growth, with the company declaring Vichy had witnessed its best growth in 18 years. In 2024, dermatological beauty saw 9.8% growth, followed by 5.5% in 2025. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the category was up by 10.8% like-for-like.

Boutiba is a L’Oréal veteran with over 20 years of experience at the group, having worked across three divisions: luxury, consumer, and now dermatology. “Each division has its specificity, but luxury is where brand equity is absolutely key and we know that luxury today is all about experience,” he says.

Vichy’s fellow L’Oréal Group brands — SkinCeuticals, La Roche-Posay, and Cerave — have each reached the billion-euro mark already, despite being younger. But Vichy’s time is now. “We have a strong positioning that really resonates worldwide, and we’re going into the integrative health category with a global approach,” says Boutiba. “The road to a billion needs to address the consumer. That’s part of becoming a global brand.”

The men’s opportunity

L’Oréal Group has big ambitions for the dermatological beauty brand. The men’s skincare market is a growing focus for Vichy. Women currently represent between 60% and 70% of the business, but Boutiba is keen to reach a 50-50 split looking ahead.

According to Euromonitor, the global market for men’s skincare is expected to be worth $5 billion by 2027, growing approximately 2.7% from 2026, with a current value of $4.9 billion.

Vichy is betting on the 2026 Fifa World Cup in June to help win men’s market share. The brand has tapped Vitinha, the Portuguese soccer player and Paris Saint-Germain FC midfielder, as an ambassador for its Dercos dermatological haircare range, the brand announced on Friday. Turnover for Dercos has quadrupled in five years, according to the brand, making it Vichy’s biggest growth driver. The line, which launched in China in 2021 and expanded to the US last year, features five anti-dandruff shampoos and conditioners, each tailored to either normal, oily or dry hair and sensitive scalps. More than one bottle of the Dercos Anti-Dandruff DS Shampoo is sold every two seconds worldwide, Boutiba says.

In naming Vitinha an ambassador, the brand is building intergenerational appeal among men, Boutiba explains, as soccer unites audiences from Gen Z to boomers. According to Fifa, the 2022 World Cup engaged five billion fans, with 1.42 billion viewers tuning in to watch the final match between France and Argentina.

The 26-year-old player — who is also a Nike ambassador — has an Instagram following of 4.4 million. “Vitinha is someone that’s focused on health and his performance, which is a match for Vichy,” Boutiba says. “The magic of soccer is that it’s cross-generational and resonates no matter a person’s social background, which is similar to Vichy — we have deodorants for €7 and longevity creams for €80.”

Vichy’s overall approach to ambassadors is to tap into the many consumer bases. In addition to Vitinha, Vichy targets a science-led consumer through French biochemist Jessie Inchauspé, otherwise known as @GlucoseGoddess on Instagram (6.2 million followers), a Vichy ambassador since September 2024. To align with wellness, the brand tapped model and wellness content creator Emily DiDonato.

But Vichy still has some catching up to do. Many brands have invested in men’s skincare in recent years, to try and tap into the opportunity. La Roche-Posay signed Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner in 2024, the same year that Taiwanese singer Jay Chou was named La Mer’s first male ambassador and Cerave tapped actor Michael Cera for a campaign.

Looking ahead, the brand is expanding from anti-dandruff into the hair loss segment, which is growing in men’s grooming discourse, with Dercos’s R.E.G.E.N. Booster Serum and Collagen 17 shampoo, both of which launched at the end of 2025. “These two hair products will remain at the core of our strategy to become a billionaire brand,” says Boutiba.

Beyond skincare

To get ahead, Vichy has been repositioning itself in the market over the last two years, moving beyond skincare and deeper into integrative health, combining topical products with gut and mental health. “We’re going beyond topical beauty and looking at the body and mental health, because we’re targeting a new audience of health performers [a health-conscious consumer that factors longevity and wellness into their daily lives],” says Boutiba.

Vichy wants to reach the growing number of consumers that are interested in longevity, taking supplements, tracking their sleep, and eating organically. “What has been successful for us is blending cosmetics with medicine, it’s our magical recipe,” he says. “Health performers make up 20% of the worldwide population, it’s cross-gender and generation, which is what Vichy has been about from the very beginning.”

The supplement market holds a lot of promise for brands that get it right. On TikTok, 2.8 million videos have been created using the #supplements hashtag to date, and according to Euromonitor, the global consumer health market was valued at $338 billion in 2025. “It’s a future opportunity for us and it’s [already] big, but now it’s getting bigger,” says Boutiba. “Our founder, Dr. Haller, was a general practitioner, so health has always been at the heart of our equity.”

Earlier this month, Vichy launched its Liftactiv Collagen supplement, co-developed with nine international dermatologists and nutritionists, at Vichy’s development labs in France and with support from L’Oréal Group’s global research and innovation network in China, the US, Brazil, and Africa. The brand’s medical and marketing teams have also collaborated with Huashan Hospital in China and King’s College London.

Vichy is the second most-recommended brand by dermatologists worldwide, according to the brand, and it takes the top spot for the dermatologist-recommended anti-dandruff and haircare brand globally. “The products are unique because it’s a good blend of efficacy mixed with the sensoriality of the formula. In this market, you can sometimes have efficient products, but they don’t smell good or the application is hard,” says Boutiba, adding that Vichy works on blending efficiency with ease of use in order to create hero products.

Market focus

Vichy is active in 40 countries, with its three biggest markets being France, Brazil and Germany. The brand ramped up its digital marketing in 2025, with a series of social media campaigns and content created by influencers, accumulating 14 billion views across YouTube, TikTok, and Meta. Social engagements were up 60% in 2024. The campaign for its anti-dandruff shampoo totaled six billion views on TikTok, Boutiba says.

Vichy works hard to adapt its messaging and positioning for different markets, and will develop products based on certain market needs. Take Vichy’s Liftactiv Collagen 16 Bonding Serum as an example, which launched in January, the anti-aging product was created based on 15 years of research with 8,900 molecules tested for the product. In Latin America (Latam), the brand has been tackling GLP-1 users. “One of the side effects we’re seeing is ‘GLP-1 face’, where people are losing collagen because of the weight loss. Studies show that our collagen serum tackles that,” says Boutiba. “That’s something that’s going to be really local to the Latin American audience and it’s very relevant in Brazil.”

The brand has been conducting studies that show the Liftactiv Collagen 16 Bonding Serum boosts collagen production in the skin by 350%. Meanwhile, the same product in Europe is focused on consumers that want to counteract signs of aging, according to Vichy, with the serum targeting 16 areas of aging including wrinkles, fine lines, skin texture, and more.

The real hard work for Vichy begins now — and the clock is ticking as they eye up the €1 billion mark. “When I arrived here, I was struck by the brand’s medical [practise], the knowledge and clinical studies that we do,” says Boutiba.