Beauty, as an industry, is no longer concentrated in capitals of fashion New York and Los Angeles. A bevy of beauty product makers call South Florida home and are cashing in on the area’s celebrity and reputation as a trendy tropical oasis.

“Florida is a magnet for the beauty industry because it is one of the strongest beauty care markets in the country,” says Larry Oskin, president of Fairfax, Va.-based Marketing Solutions, a beauty industry consultancy. “There is more consumer demand, so Florida has more outlets than most states driving business to the consumer.” The attraction for multinational companies such as Elizabeth Arden, and smaller firms such as i-bella and Samy Cos., comes down to South Florida demographics. The area is replete with baby boomers, Hispanics, Latin Americans and African-Americans who, on average, use more beauty products and services than the rest of the nation’s population, Oskin says, and that “good mix” is the prime reason why Florida is the No. 4 consumer of those goods in the United States, behind New York, California and Texas.

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For suppliers, it makes sense to be in close proximity to their consumer base, experts say. The Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association–the personal care products industry trade association–has approximately 17 members in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

One of those is Elizabeth Arden, the company named after its founder, who opened the first modern beauty salon in 1910. South Florida-based FFI Fragrances acquired Arden from personal products giant Unilever in 2001 and adopted the Elizabeth Arden name as its own. Early this year, the company shed half its South Florida workforce but kept its CEO and 100 financing, sales and marketing staff working from its corporate headquarters in Miami Lakes. Most of Arden’s manufacturing and distribution operations are now based in Roanoke, Va.

Elizabeth Arden’s net sales for fiscal year 2004 increased 8.3 percent to $814.4 million, exceeding the expectations of industry analysts–the cosmetics and toiletries market last year grew a paltry 0.7 percent, according to market research firm Euromonitor International. Thank star power for Arden’s boost.

The company derives 75 percent of its sales from fragrance lines, including celebrity-endorsed scents from pop singer Britney Spears and movie star Elizabeth Taylor, as well as the fashion houses of Halston and Geoffrey Beene. It was the US launch of Arden’s Provocative Women fragrance, and the accompanying marketing blitz with actress and pitchwoman Catherine Zeta-Jones, that led to increased sales through retail mass merchandisers, the company said in its Aug. 6 earnings release.

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Small Packages

Most of South Florida’s beauty firms operate in the enormous shadow of Arden, but industry experts say size is not everything and small- to midsize cosmetic companies do thrive in South Florida.

Lauren Anderson ended her 23-year career with cosmetics giant Estee Lauder to move to South Florida eight years ago. Now CEO of the Fort Lauderdale-based training and development firm Lauren Anderson Associates, she says, chief among the reasons for operating here are plentiful office and warehouse space and a well-trained labor force, which are all less expensive than in New York. And she adds that tapping the Latin American market, for example, is easier from a South Florida base.

“You’re not going to get the Estee Lauders of the world to relocate here, but for smaller firms, there are obvious advantages to being in South Florida,” Anderson says.

It was access to the east coast of the US that attracted entrepreneur Lawrence LaDove to South Florida. In 1971, he launched LaDove Inc., a private-label hair and skin care company in Miami.

“At the time, California was the hotbed of the hair care industry, so to go out there and compete did not make sense,” says Sheree LaDove Kent, LaDove’s daughter and the firm’s current CEO.

Business grew nationwide and then overseas but LaDove remained in South Florida because of its trained workforce and the relative ease of traveling from Miami to international destinations. With backing from private investors, Kent bought her father’s stake in the company in 2000 and launched an effort to expand the company’s client base, distribution channels and product lines.

“My father’s philosophy was to run the business for [his] lifestyle, and it did provide a wonderful lifestyle, but I really wanted to grow the company,” Kent says. Today, LaDove manufactures approximately 1,200 different personal care products, from economy lines sold at mass retailers (brands such as Charles Worthington) to more exclusive professional salon products such as Tigi Bed Head, Catwalk and Regis Design Line.

To accommodate its increased product lines, the company recently more than tripled its manufacturing footprint by moving into a 140,000-square-foot factory in Miami Lakes. That facility houses laboratories, corporate offices and product manufacturing, with more than 100 full-time employees.