Merci Handy

Merci Handy is a French personal-care brand based in Paris that makes colourful, everyday cosmetics built around hand care, body products and clean formulas. Founded by Louis Marty, who serves as chief executive, the company grew from a single line of brightly coloured hand cleansing gels into a multi-category range sold across dozens of countries. Sources differ on the founding year: an industry interview with Paris Packaging Week dates it to 2014 [5], while the trade publication Vegconomist records 2015 and names Roland Nielsen as a co-founder alongside Marty [6].

The brand positions itself around play and optimism, using the rainbow as its central motif and the tagline "Turning the ordinary into the extraordinary." It is an active, internationally distributed company; as of 2024 its homepage cited nine million products sold and roughly seven years in operation.

Merci Handy traces its origin to Louis Marty's student years. According to the company's history page, he was frustrated that the hand cleansing gels his friends carried all looked the same, and set out to make practical cosmetics that bring colour and joy to daily routines. The brand frames the rainbow as a symbol of light breaking through difficulty — the point where cloudy and sunny days meet.

Marty is consistently named as co-founder and chief executive across the brand's own pages and the editorial interviews. A second co-founder, Roland Nielsen, is named by Vegconomist [6], which also places an early headquarters in both Paris and New York; the Paris Packaging Week interview records Paris as the primary base [5].

The company describes its mission as imagining "a colourful parallel world that just bursts into your everyday life," turning ordinary moments into something more cheerful. It summarises its purpose as creating "practical and colourful every day cosmetics using clean ingredients and rainbow extracts," and lists joy, simplicity and creativity as its core values [5]. The design language — bright packaging, playful illustrations and quirky on-pack messages — is aimed at a younger audience, with editorial coverage describing it as targeting Gen Z and millennial consumers [6].

Hand sanitizers and cleansing gels are the brand's signature and starting product, and the range has since expanded into deodorants, face and body care, body serums, makeup such as lip oils, and nail patches. Fragrance is a recurring focus: the company says its scents are developed with what it calls the best "Noses" from Grasse, the perfume-making region in the south of France. Formulas are described as clean and made with natural-origin ingredients where possible, with coconut oil, aloe vera and allantoin among those named.

The brand emphasises vegan, cruelty-free formulation. It says it reformulated all 54 of its products in 2017 to remove animal-derived ingredients such as lactose [6], and the animal-protection group PETA lists Merci Handy as cruelty-free, stating that neither its ingredients nor finished products are tested on animals and that its suppliers follow the same standard [4]. Packaging sustainability is a stated priority: the company reports reducing plastic and using recycled materials, including hand-sanitizer bottles it describes as made from post-consumer recycled plastic [5].

Merci Handy received a Cosmetic Mag Award in 2019 for its Slime Shower Jelly [6]. The brand has also been the subject of trade-press interviews, including a 2024 feature in Paris Packaging Week focused on its packaging and sustainability approach [5] and a 2021 Vegconomist interview on its vegan strategy [6].

Merci Handy is active. It operates a live English-language European storefront, holds a current PETA cruelty-free listing, and was the subject of a 2024 industry interview; its products are sold across roughly 40 countries. The most recent documented activity in the available sources is the June 2024 Paris Packaging Week interview with Louis Marty [5].