Laboratorios Babé

Laboratorios Babé is a Spanish dermocosmetic company founded in 1990 in Valencia and based in Paterna, on the city's outskirts. It makes pharmacy-channel skincare for the face, body and hair, along with baby care and sun protection, and sells through pharmacies in 55 countries [1][2]. The company remains independent and privately financed [5], and is active in 2026.

The brand mark carries an accent — written as Laboratorios Babé, or BABÉ on packaging — that some retailers drop. The accent is not decorative: it points to the name's origin in the Valencian phrase va Bé, meaning "it's good," the answer the founders reportedly gave when asked how a product was working [7].

The company was started by two pharmacists, Vicente Ruiz and Romualdo Bertomeu, in the back room — the rebotica — of a Valencia pharmacy [2]. According to the company, the pair wanted to build "a high-quality dermo-cosmetic brand with pharmaceutical requirements" and to offer effective solutions to real skin problems. Early products were formulated in the pharmacy's own lab and recommended first to family, neighbours and friends before the brand expanded commercially.

Babé ties its identity closely to that pharmacy beginning. "Our commitment to the pharmaceutical sector is linked to our origins, to our purest essence," the company states, framing its pharmaceutical roots as the core of its positioning rather than a marketing afterthought.

Babé adopted a new corporate identity in 1998 and began expanding abroad the following year, entering Portugal in 1999 [2]. In 2003 it reached Latin America and launched Oil Soap (sold in Spanish as Baño Oil), a bath product that became its best-selling line. A pediatric range for babies and children followed in 2007, and the Stop AKN line for oily and acne-prone skin arrived in 2008.

In 2018 the company opened a large manufacturing facility in Paterna — which it describes as one of Europe's highest-capacity and most technologically advanced cosmetics production sites — and entered the Chinese market the same year. During the 2020 pandemic it released a hand sanitiser, Hidrogel Dermaseptic.

Laboratorios Babé is privately financed and lists no parent company; its LinkedIn profile records it as privately held with 51–200 employees [5]. No acquisitions are documented.

Babé positions itself as a pharmacy brand that pairs pharmaceutical-grade rigour with broad accessibility. Its stated mission centres on the whole household: the company says it remains "committed to the health and well-being of the skin of the whole family" and believes it is possible to make "safe, effective dermocosmetics accessible to all people." The primary tagline is La Fórmula del Cuidado ("The Formula of Care").

Spanish trade press has summarised the brand around a set of self-described attributes — safety and efficacy, simplicity, innovation, transparency, accessibility and empathy — under the positioning phrase Sencillamente esencial ("Simply essential") [6]. The company keeps a professional channel and feedback loop through its +NFODERM club, a network of pharmacies specialising in dermocosmetics.

The catalogue spans facial care (serums, creams, cleansers and ampoules), hair care, body care, baby and child care, and sun protection. Signature lines include the Facial Serums range (Renew, Balance, Repair, Hydra and Antiox), the DEPIGMENT+ treatment for dark spots, the Photoprotection 365 sun-care range and a Lip & Cheek Color Balm SPF 50.

The longstanding flagship is Oil Soap (Baño Oil), described in trade coverage as containing more than 40% emollient oils and aimed at dry, very dry and atopic skin [7]. Babé attributes its formulating approach to a system of encapsulated active ingredients developed by an in-house R&D department, which the company frames as enabling a "synergic action" of the actives.

The brand is active. It operates live multi-language websites, maintains an in-house manufacturing site in Paterna, and continues to launch products, including recent SPF 50 sun-protection items [1]. The company reports a footprint of 55 countries across Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.