Eugène Perma

Eugène Perma is a French hair-care company founded in 1919 and based in the Paris area, in Gennevilliers. For more than a century it built a portfolio of professional and consumer hair brands — colour, care and styling — manufactured largely in France. After years of financial strain the company was placed in receivership in 2023 and taken over by a consortium of three family-owned beauty businesses, who continue to operate it [5].

The house traces its name and its early success to the permanent wave, the curling technique its founder helped pioneer. Today it positions itself, in the company's words, as "an innovative global professional beauty partner with a strong attachment to France."

The company was created on 4 March 1919 in Paris by Eugène Sutter, described by French Wikipedia as a Swiss hairdresser and wigmaker [3]. A distributor history page gives the founding year as 1918 [7]; the 1919 date is the one used by Wikipedia, by the trade magazine Estetica in its centenary feature, and by the brand's own "100 years" messaging.

Sutter's lasting contribution was technical. Working with the Spanish inventor Isidoro Calvete, he developed the first hot permanent wave machine — the device behind what became known simply as "the perm." The success of that invention, named the "Eugène permanent wave," underpinned the company's early international growth and gave the firm part of its name.

Through the twentieth century the company expanded by launching and absorbing brands. It introduced the Biorène hair-care line in 1927 and the Tincap-Gel colorant in 1954, then created the Eugène Color brand in 1961 and the Kéranove treatment ampoules in 1966 [3]. It acquired the Gallia company in 1955, and in 1995 the Eugène Gallia and Perma names merged into a single company under the shareholder Holcos.

In 1998 the company acquired Pétrole Hahn, a hair-tonic brand that had existed since 1885 [3]. Manufacturing was consolidated at a plant in Reims after the closure of a Barcelona facility, and the Reims factory was inaugurated in 2004. In 2011 the company launched Yzaé, an ammonia-free colorant. The businessman Didier Martin, who had led the firm since the mid-1990s, acquired it outright in 2012 [3]. In 2019 the company marked 100 years of professional hairdressing heritage [6].

For most of the 2010s the company was an independent, family-owned French enterprise led by Didier Martin [3]. That arrangement ended in 2023. The Paris Commercial Court placed Eugène Perma in receivership on 1 August 2023, and on 15 December a consortium of three family-owned beauty companies — Superga Beauty, Naturopera and the Italian group Alfaparf Milano — acquired it out of receivership [5]. The takeover was structured as a joint acquisition by independent businesses rather than absorption into a single parent; according to the trade outlet BeautyMatter, Superga Beauty entered a five-year exclusive production agreement with Naturopera and Alfaparf Milano as part of the deal.

The company describes itself as an independent, family-owned French business whose history is bound up with the development of the hairdressing trade. Its stated ambition, in its own phrasing, is "a global, healthy, accessible and sustainable" beauty, and it emphasises French manufacturing: the brand site claims products are made in France with 95% French suppliers. Operations are split into two divisions — consumer brands sold through mass retail, and professional brands sold through hair salons.

Eugène Perma's range covers hair colour, hair care, and styling. Its portfolio spans several sub-brands, including Carmen (with the Carmen Rituel colour line), Essentiel, Collections Nature, Artist(e), Eugène Color, Kéranove and the consumer brand Pétrole Hahn. Carmen Rituel is presented as a more natural colorant; according to Premium Beauty News, the company states it is made with 95% ingredients of natural origin and without ammonia, PPD, resorcinol or mineral oils [4].

The firm's defining innovation remains the early permanent wave technology. In later decades it pursued lower-impact formulas, exemplified by the ammonia-free Yzaé line and an organic range introduced in 2018.

Most of the group's hair products are made at the Reims factory, which has held Ecocert Cosmos certification since 2018 [4]. The company points to eco-designed formulas, recyclable packaging using up to 50% recycled materials, and a largely European supply base. These are the company's own stated commitments.

Pétrole Hahn, the company's consumer hair brand, used sports figures in its advertising, signing the footballer Bixente Lizarazu in 2000 and naming the rugby player Vincent Clerc a brand ambassador in 2015 [3]. The company and its centenary were covered by trade publications including Premium Beauty News, Estetica Magazine and BeautyMatter.

The 2023 receivership followed several years of financial difficulty. The company attributed its troubles to a succession of crises beginning with a 2018 supply-chain problem, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation, which left it with significant debt. By 2022 it reported turnover of €83.7 million and a net loss of €8.5 million [5]. The consortium that took over retained about 90% of the workforce, roughly 213 employees.

Eugène Perma is an active brand under new ownership. Its last documented change of control was the December 2023 acquisition out of receivership by the Superga Beauty, Naturopera and Alfaparf Milano consortium [5]. The company's website remains live with its full product portfolio, and its sub-brands continue to be distributed through professional hair salons internationally.