L'Oreal beauty academy opens in Auckland, will train thousands of retail staff

L'Oreal Academy will provide on-the-job upskilling and resources to hair salon and retail staff.

The world's biggest beauty company has opened an inner-city Auckland training facility to cater for growth across its brands in New Zealand.

The L'Oreal Academy will provide on-the-job upskilling and resources to hair salon and retail counter staff from throughout New Zealand.

The company's Asia Pacific executive vice president, Jochen Zaumseil, said on a flying visit for the opening this week that this country's economic stability made it stand out. Business here was doing well, and beauty was an area where retail and digital could successfully mesh.

The "selfie" generation was driving beauty sales, he said, with the internet fuelling trends in vivid hair colour and cosmetics.

L'Oreal's New Zealand general manager, Martin Smith, said investing in training helped spur business growth, by supporting the company's retail partners in the skills needed to deliver consumers the new experiences they craved. Close to 15,000 New Zealand hairdressers received training from L'Oreal last year (and a million worldwide).

The academy, in a swish fit-out in Federal St, is expected to facilitate a 20 per cent local training boost for hair courses.

Its facilities provide separate space for the company's Luxe division training, encompassing fragrance and premium makeup and skincare. This includes fast growing brands such as Yves Saint Laurent, Lancome and Kiehl's and perfumes from Armani and Viktor & Rolf.

"We want to advance the skills of beauty experts so consumers continue to be inspired by beauty and benefit from an excellent beauty experience in this country," Smith said.

The L'Oreal Academy is located on Auckland's Federal Street.

Academy facilities will also allow digital assets to be developed locally.

The area will be used for hosting as well, separate from the company's corporate offices in Penrose.

Inside L'Oreal's new beauty academy.

L'Oreal's hair brands from its professional products division, which dominates salon sales, include the namesake range, plus Redken, Matrix, Kerastase and Pureology.

Its market leading mass market makeup lines include Maybelline and L'Oreal Paris. The company has also been on the acquisition path internationally, picking up "cult" brands with appeal to millennials, such as Urban Decay.