We Are Not a Cosmetics Company

A sentence from our Senior Managing Director's essay deserves to stand as our company's definition: "Cosmetics may be our foundation today, but neither the chairman nor I have ever thought of this as a cosmetics company. Cosmetics are a means.

What we operate is a company that increases the total amount of smiles in the world — unchanged since the day we met." Define a company by what it sells, and its meaning gets lost the moment the product changes. Define it by why it exists, and no change of product can shake it.

We make cosmetics and wellness products, and will enter medicine, food, education; the means will keep multiplying. But the work has been one thing since founding: increase the world's total smiles. Every new venture faces one simple test — does it? Is your company defined by what it sells, or what it is for?

What do you work for?