Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent is a French luxury beauty brand headquartered in Paris. It grew out of the couture house founded in 1961 by designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé [5], though the cosmetics line itself was introduced later, in 1978 [5]. The beauty business — often styled YSL Beauty or YSL Beauté — has been owned by L'Oréal since 2008, when the group bought it from PPR [6]. The fashion house that carries the same name is a separate corporate entity, owned by Kering [5].

The brand spans makeup, fragrance and skincare, and positions itself around boldness and self-expression. It remains an active flagship within L'Oréal's Luxe division, marketed globally.

The Yves Saint Laurent house was established in Paris in 1961 by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé [5], with its headquarters recorded at 37 Rue de Bellechasse in the city's 7th arrondissement [5]. The beauty arm developed out of the couture house over the following decades: the Opium fragrance appeared in 1977, and the cosmetics line proper was introduced in 1978 [5]. Because of this, the founding date depends on which entity is meant — 1961 for the house, 1978 for the beauty line specifically [5]. L'Oréal's corporate material frames the beauty business as an inheritance from the founder, whom it calls the figure who "shaped the cultural zeitgeist for generations."

The beauty and fragrance business was acquired by L'Oréal in 2008. According to the Moodie Davitt Report, L'Oréal agreed to buy YSL Beauté Holding from PPR — the parent of Gucci Group — for 1.15 billion euros, with the deal announced on 23 January 2008 and finalised later that spring [6]. The purchase also brought L'Oréal worldwide perfume and cosmetics licences for the Yves Saint Laurent and Boucheron names, among others [6]. At the time, L'Oréal chief executive Jean-Paul Agon described the agreement as "a great opportunity for L'Oréal and its Luxury Products Division" [6].

The company now operates as part of L'Oréal's Luxe division. Its corporate sisters within that group include Lancôme, Kiehl's, Helena Rubinstein and Prada Beauty's stablemate brands, alongside L'Oréal's mass-market names such as Maybelline and Garnier. The Yves Saint Laurent fashion trademark, by contrast, sits with Kering [5] — so the beauty and fashion operations run under two distinct owners.

L'Oréal presents the brand as a luxury house that, in its own words, creates "daring beauty that dresses change." The stated identity centres on "boldness and singularity, defined by clashes of color and style, a liberation from convention, and a defiance of the norm." The company frames beauty as audacity and self-expression, tracing this back to the founder's design sensibility. Global Brand President Stephan Bezy has described the aim as "pushing the boundaries, playing with tensions and creating daring beauty that dresses change." Editorial coverage has characterised the wider Yves Saint Laurent identity as one built on "power in subtlety" and "silent confidence."

The range covers makeup, fragrance and skincare. In makeup, Touche Éclat — a highlighting pen — and the Rouge Pur Couture lipstick are among the brand's long-running products; editorial coverage describes Touche Éclat as having "changed the way the world relates to light." In fragrance, Black Opium, Libre and MYSLF are the principal recent pillars, with Black Opium described in third-party coverage as the "top-selling" scent. Libre launched in 2019, promoted as "the fragrance of freedom, embodied by Dua Lipa." The brand's heritage fragrance collection is sold as Le Vestiaire des Parfums.

Skincare is built around botanicals from the Ourika Community Gardens, a cultivation project the company established in 2014 at the foothills of Morocco's Atlas Mountains. According to the brand, the gardens hold more than 200 plant varieties and supply 17 exclusive ingredients grown through regenerative and organic methods, cultivated by a female-led local collective. One example is the saffron pistil sourced there and used in the refillable Or Rouge La Crème Riche.

Beyond the Ourika project, the company promotes refillable packaging as a way to cut material use. It states that refilling its serum saves 95 percent of the plastic otherwise used, and that refilling the Eau de Parfum Intense bottle saves up to 58 percent glass, 100 percent metal, 59 percent plastic and 42 percent paper. In 2020 the brand also launched "Abuse Is Not Love," a programme addressing intimate partner violence that it says operates across more than 25 markets, with a goal of educating two million people by 2030.

The brand is closely tied to celebrity ambassadors: Dua Lipa and Hailey Bieber for Libre, Austin Butler for MYSLF, and Lenny Kravitz for the Y fragrance line, according to editorial coverage. Touche Éclat and Black Opium are frequently cited in press as signature, long-running products.

The beauty business is active and trading globally as a flagship brand within L'Oréal's Luxe division. It is classified here as acquired to reflect the 2008 L'Oréal purchase [6] rather than any dormancy; product launches and the "Abuse Is Not Love" programme were ongoing as of 2026.