The flagship store may be in Paris but the brand is firmly grounded in the Côte d’Azur, where founders Amandine and Julien Azencott grew up and established their laboratory.
Behind the Codage brand stand two ambitious siblings with a shared passion, Amandine and Julien Azencott, who grew up in a family of pharmacists and doctors and believe skincare products should be effective and transparent. After their studies the two Rivierans worked for big corporations for a few years and ended up in the USA, where in 2010 they joined forces to set up their own consultancy. Then they decided it was time to up the ante and take on the cosmetology industry. "Our Codage concept just seemed blindingly obvious," says Amandine. That concept being high-end products that correct flaws, beautify the skin and slow down the ageing process, without any false promises. "We decided to revive the traditional French pharmacist's service of creating personally tailored formulas."
Birth of a brand
These pioneers in customised cosmetology drew on cutting-edge technology for their skincare products, packaged them beautifully and worked out a marketing strategy that rapidly proved its worth. To answer the nutritional requirements of all skin types, Codage has developed Nutri-Elements, cocktails of active ingredients that work together to provide targeted solutions for specific needs. Carefully combined and dosed, these ingredients deliver all the nutrients indispensable for healthy skin, with each custom-created combination having its own unique formula, its codage. "We've built up the business together. Our strong point is our complicity and trust in each other; we are complementary: Julien is the creative brimming with ideas, I'm more in the background, channelling things," Amandine explains. The Codage range offers numerous face and body products but the key is the serum. The products can be mixed and matched – moisturising, detoxing, anti-ageing, repairing, protecting… – to intensify results and satisfaction.
Expansion
From the start Codage manufactured its products in a laboratory just outside Nice and sent them out direct from there. Then in 2015 it opened a flagship store in the heart of Paris's hip Le Marais district; this offers the brand's signature MyCODAGE service: a comprehensive skin diagnosis from which an expert works out a unique customised formula, selecting texture, active ingredients and concentrations to suit that specific skin. "We are completely transparent about our choice of active ingredients. Our formulas are clean and natural and we are proud to be valorising our French knowhow." Codage expertise is now available all over the world, in the spas of selected 5-star and palace-class hotels from New York and Las Vegas through heavenly islands such as Mauritius and Mykonos to ski resorts including Courchevel and La Clusaz.
Par Caroline Stefani