MÊME Cosmetics

MÊME Cosmetics is a French dermo-cosmetic brand based in Paris, created to serve women undergoing cancer treatment. It describes itself as the first beauty brand dedicated entirely to that audience, formulating skin, scalp, nail and makeup products for the fragile, reactive skin that chemotherapy and radiotherapy can leave behind. The name is stylised with a circumflex on the second letter — MÊME — a play on the French word for "same" and the idea, in the founders' words, that a woman can still feel like herself through illness.

Since April 2023 the brand has been wholly owned by the Pierre Fabre Group, the French pharmaceutical and dermo-cosmetics company [8]. It continues to operate as a standalone business, and its two co-founders remain in charge of running it.

MÊME was founded by Judith Levy Keller and Juliette Couturier, who met in July 2014 during end-of-studies marketing internships at L'Oréal Luxe. Levy, who had studied design at Strate College in Paris, lost her mother to metastatic breast cancer in 2010 [11]. She has said the experience shaped the idea: her mother's attachment to clothes and cosmetics deepened during her illness, which led Levy to see beauty care as a way to hold onto a sense of self. She developed the concept as a design-school thesis. Couturier, a graduate of Sciences Po and the HEC business school, took on the company's commercial and strategic side; cancer had also touched her own family.

The two framed the project, in the company's telling, around making products that were not only suited to patients' specific needs but also "desirable and feminine and in line with current trends" — a deliberate move away from clinical, medicalised packaging. One founding interview quotes Levy's wish that patients could tell themselves "even sick, I love myself, and I am loved" [10].

Sources disagree on exactly when the brand began. Pierre Fabre's acquisition announcement gives a founding year of 2017, which appears to mark the commercial product launch [8]. Earlier accounts place the origin in 2014 as a student concept, with the company formally established and backed by the venture fund Eutopia around 2015 [10][11]. The differing dates reflect the gap between the initial idea, the company's formation, and the first products reaching the market.

The Pierre Fabre Group acquired the entire capital of MÊME on 12 April 2023, buying out the co-founders and the Eutopia investment fund (its Otium Consumer vehicle) [8]. Pierre Fabre had already held a minority stake for around five years before taking full control [8][9]. The trade publication BeautyMatter, reporting the deal, described MÊME as "the reference brand for skin damaged by cancer treatments" [9].

Pierre Fabre placed the acquisition alongside its existing priorities in oncology, dermatology and dermo-cosmetics. Within the group, MÊME sits beside dermatological skincare brands including Avène, A-Derma, Ducray, Klorane and René Furterer. The co-founders stayed on after the sale to continue managing the brand, with both companies citing plans to expand internationally.

MÊME positions skincare during cancer as both a practical aid and a psychological one — a way to ease the side effects of treatment while helping patients preserve self-image. The company stresses what it calls rigorous standards for fragile skin: according to its trust charter, it avoids essential oils and any ingredients likely to cause allergies, as well as those linked to cancer or suspected of disrupting hormones. It says it prefers active ingredients of natural origin and aims for "the best possible balance between nature, safety and effectiveness."

The brand reports that its range is built around a high share of natural-origin ingredients, though the published figure varies by source and year: a 2021 portrait cites a minimum of 93% natural ingredients [10], while 2023 coverage of the acquisition gives 92% natural-origin [12]. Products are manufactured in France, at sites the company lists in Aix-en-Provence, Brest, Lyon, Chartres, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Orléans.

The catalogue spans roughly 46 products across face care, body, scalp and hair, nails, makeup and intimate care. Signature items include an SPF50+ high-protection fluid and stick, a face moisturiser, and a booster serum for eyelashes and eyebrows — the latter aimed at regrowth after treatment-related loss. The brand also makes a silicon-based nail polish [12], reflecting a focus on the nail damage that some cancer therapies cause.

MÊME says its formulas are developed with oncologists and dermatologists and tested in clinical studies, including trials involving patients with sensitive or highly reactive skin. Alongside the products, the company publishes practical guides on caring for skin, hair and nails during treatment, and runs editorial content on living with cancer.

Since its inception the brand has donated 1% of its sales to cancer research, channelled to the French cancer-care network Unicancer [8]. Manufacturing is kept within France, and the formulation policy excludes ingredients the company regards as incompatible with cancer treatment or sensitive skin.

MÊME is sold mainly through pharmacies and drugstores rather than conventional beauty retail, in keeping with the French dermo-cosmetic model. Its own store locator cites more than 5,900 pharmacies across France, Belgium and Switzerland, and the brand sells directly online. At the time of the Pierre Fabre acquisition it reported a presence in around 4,800 pharmacies in France plus ten further countries, including Germany, Morocco, Romania, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Spain, Italy and China.

MÊME remains active. It has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pierre Fabre Group since April 2023 but operates independently, with founders Judith Levy Keller and Juliette Couturier still managing it. Its e-commerce site was live and updated as of 2026.