Payot

Payot is a French skincare company founded in Paris in 1920 by Dr. Nadia Payot, a physician who built the brand around a method she called the "Culture Physique du Visage", or physical culture of the face [1]. More than a century later it remains active, working across roughly 70 countries through a mix of professional salons, retail and its own boutiques. In March 2025 the brand was fully acquired by the luxury-beauty group USHOPAL, which announced plans to expand it globally with a particular focus on China [5].

The house is best known for a professional, facialist approach to skincare and for long-lived products such as Pâte Grise, a blemish paste that has been sold in some form since the 1940s.

Nadia Payot was among the first generation of women to practise medicine, and the brand presents her work as an early argument for beauty as a form of freedom rather than a matter of appearance alone. According to the company, she "decided to create the Physical Culture of the Face against general opinion", pairing facial muscle exercises with targeted skincare and framing the routine as connected to women's emancipation.

Specialist cosmetics history places her wider biography in more detail: born Nadia Grégoire Rakhat in Odesa in 1887, she studied medicine at the University of Lausanne, graduated in 1912, and settled in Paris toward the end of the decade before launching her first products in 1920.

Sources agree the brand dates to 1920, when the first Payot products appeared, but they distinguish this from the later incorporation of the business. The company itself marks 1920 as its origin [1], while the cosmetics-history reference cosmeticsandskin.com records the legal entity "N. G. Payot et Y. Beaumevieille S.A.R.L." as established in November 1927, with the flagship salon on rue Richepanse in Paris inaugurated in March 1928 [3].

The first Parisian salon opened in the mid-1920s on rue Richepanse, alongside early products including Crème n°2 Payot. The method at the centre of the business, the Culture Physique du Visage, is said to have taken shape after Nadia Payot met the ballerina Anna Pavlova and concluded that muscle activity helped maintain a youthful appearance.

Several formulas from the mid-20th century became long-running fixtures. Pâte Grise, a grey paste containing ichthammol and intended for acne and blemishes, was launched in 1947. In 1961 the company introduced Crème Hydriane, which cosmeticsandskin.com credits as its first dedicated moisturiser. Nadia Payot died in 1966, marking the end of the founder era.

Payot changed hands repeatedly in the second half of the 20th century and beyond. It was acquired by the German company Muelhens in 1980; when Wella purchased Muelhens in 1994 it inherited the brand, which then passed to the Spanish company Myrurgia in 1996 and became part of the Barcelona-based group Puig around 2001 [2][6]. In September 2014 the investment firm LBO France acquired an 80 percent stake from Puig through its Hexagone III fund, alongside an entrepreneur-led management team [6].

The most recent change is a matter of some discrepancy between sources. In March 2025, PR Newswire reported that USHOPAL had fully acquired Payot [5]; the current owner is therefore recorded here as USHOPAL. The French Wikipedia entry still describes the brand as operating under LBO France ownership, as its article predates the 2025 transaction [2]. Records also differ slightly on earlier steps: cosmeticsandskin.com adds an ownership stage under the conglomerate ITT in 1972 and dates the Puig acquisition to 2000 rather than 2001 [3].

The brand's guiding idea, summarised in the tagline "La beauté en mouvement" — Beauty in Motion — treats skincare as responsive to individual skin conditions rather than a fixed standard. According to Payot, it has "accompanied women in their movement, their freedom and their strength" for more than a hundred years, and describes its founder's outlook as one that "innovates, dares and liberates".

In commercial terms the house is positioned as a professional skincare brand, distributed through selective channels as well as salons and spas [4]. Its treatment philosophy is often summarised as "one product, one gesture", rooted in the facialist tradition of combining facial muscle work with specific active ingredients.

Payot's catalogue centres on skin and body care. Its more recent signature products have been listed as MY PAYOT, N°2 and Pâte Grise, the last of which recurs across editorial and acquisition coverage as the brand's most cited item — an enduring blemish treatment dating to the 1940s that is still marketed today.

The company frames itself as an early adopter of scientific backing for skincare; Premium Beauty News describes it as "one of the pioneering brands that have sought scientific endorsement for skincare, in particular with the famous Pâte Grise" [4]. Its proprietary techniques include the founding Culture Physique du Visage and a massage method the 2025 acquisition release calls the "Facial Ballet", again tied to the influence of Anna Pavlova.

In 2023, Premium Beauty News profiled Payot as "an iconic beauty brand à la française" and reported that sales had risen 15 percent that year to 45 million euros, with the brand present in 65 countries [4]. The 2025 USHOPAL announcement described it as "one of France's most influential professional skincare brands", citing more than 5,000 spa and professional partners and some 7 million facial treatments performed annually across more than 30 countries [5].

Payot is an active heritage skincare house. Reported figures on its reach have grown and varied over time — from more than 50 countries in 2014 to 65 in 2023 and over 70 by 2025 — reflecting its expansion rather than a single fixed count. Following the USHOPAL acquisition announced on 5 March 2025, the brand's stated direction is continued global growth, with a particular emphasis on the Chinese market [5].