L’Oréal has unveiled Kenyan award-winning actress Catherine Kamau, popularly known as Kate Actress, as the face of Nice & Lovely body lotion.
Kate Actress has been tasked with enhancing the brand’s awareness and educating customers on use and application of a variety of beauty products and explain the benefits of using Nice & Lovely product ranges.
L’Oréal East Africa Managing Director Serge Sacre said the company settled on Kate because she embodies and exemplifies the brand’s values – authenticity, trust, high quality and safety that makes it a household brand-used by the whole family.
“The best ambassador we could partner with is Kate. Kate is authentic. She represents the modern Kenyan woman. She represents family, she is trusted, has fantastic skin, above all she is loved by Kenyans and you want to be like her. This was the best match. We are very happy to be signing this with Kate,” said Sacre.
L’Oréal, the world’s largest beauty and cosmetics company, says it has significantly improved quality of Nice & Lovely hair and skin products since it acquired the brand in 2013.
“Nice & lovely is disrupting the beauty industry through revolutionary innovations such as the World’s first jelly in cream, which was recently voted (in the beauty and cosmetic summit 2021 awards) as the most preferred skin moisturizer,” the company said in a statement.
“Nice & Lovely offers a wide variety of products to cater for the consumers seeking to achieve effortless beauty, at great quality and at an affordable price.”
Serge said the company is working with different industry organizations and lobby groups to discourage use of bleaching agents in beauty products which are harmful and encourage use of natural ingredients as safe alternative.
“Why would somebody in the industry offer a product that is dangerous and try to change who you are. The products we offer are the ones that bring out the beauty in you no matter your colour, race or age,” he explained.
L’Oréal projects Kenya’s beauty market value at USD 200 million with a potential to grow five-folds over the next eight years to a billion-dollar market, driven by growing middle class population that wants to splurge for feel and look good moments.
“The market is still small when you compare to the market’s 50 million population, but has been booming with double digit growth over the last decade,” said Sacre.
The beauty brand said it is investing big in education to bolster category penetration, talent acquisition and expanding its distribution network to tap into the rising opportunities.
Body lotions account for 50 percent of the body market- with research done by Nielsen ranking Nice and Lovely as Kenya’s number one body lotion.
