Soeder taps into the French market through high-end partnerships

Vincent Gallon (Photo: Courtesy of Soeder)

8 May 2023

Soeder taps into the French market through high-end partnerships

Founded in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2013, the luxury hygiene and skin care brand is tapping into the French market through a series of high-end partnerships. Hotels and restaurants such as the Wanderlust Hotel, in Chamonix, Hotel Amour, in Paris and Nice, 25 Hours Hotel, in Paris, Café Compagnon or Merci Café, in Paris, already make available to their customers a selection of Soeder’s hygiene products, including special editions.

Amour hotels, for instance have opted for the Wermut Negroni scent, a nod from Soeder to the legendary cocktail, packaged in a customized glass bottle with the hotel chain logo.

Soeder is also available in concept stores such as Merci, Fleux or Gravity, in Paris, Antic Boutik, in Nice, Babeth, in Annecy, or Alternative, in La Rochelle. As for the Parisian department stores, Le Bon Marché was the first to offer the brand.

“Placing the products in cool places was an efficient way to create a positive image and position for the brand in Switzerland. We’re doing the same in France, with Hotel Amour and selected places,” explain Hanna and Johann Olzon-Åkerström, Soeder’s co-founders.

A contemporary version of natural cosmetics

While the couple began to produce their first soaps in the kitchen of their home in Zurich, the young brand quickly found an audience. Just two years after its creation, Soeder opened their first soap manufacture in Zurich.

“Our goal was to come back to the simplicity of soap, with formulations that are free from synthetic ingredients but with modern and contemporary scents and designs. From the very beginning we wanted to control every production step from A to Z. This was essential to meet our quality and durability requirements,” Hanna and Johann told Premium Beauty News.

Soeder offers a range of natural solid and liquid soaps, as well as hand sanitizers, shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, lip balm, hand and face creams, and body and massage oils. All of them are manufactured in the brand’s own factory in the town of Schwerzenbach, near Zurich.

The products’ fragrances are exclusively derived from natural essential oils. In terms of sustainability, liquid soaps are sold in reusable and recyclable glass bottles that can be refilled in Soeder stores and at certain retails.

International development

Today, Soeder has five own stores in Switzerland, four in Zurich and one in Basel, and is distributed in the country’s department stores and main concept stores (KaDeWe, Globus, Kitchener, Blanche, Ademas). Some products are also distributed in major hotels and have been available to Swiss airline passengers since 2018. This year, Soeder also created Swiss’ First Class Kit, consisting of three products: Repair Face Serum, Restore Face Cream, and Comfort Hand Cream.

The brand now strives to strengthen its sales internationally, mainly in Europe, in France, as we said, but also in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. Soeder is also available in the United States and has just made its debut in Dubai.

To meet the growing demand, in Soeder will inaugurate in January 2024 its new production site in Zurich Werstatt, in the district of Zurich Altstetten, in the heart of former railway workshops. This new factory will make it possible to double the production capacity, up to 6 million products per year. In line with the brand’s sustainability commitments, the new plant has been designed to be energy positive, thanks to a manufacturing process that creates heat. Therefore, it will be able to release its energy surplus into the city’s grid.

Portfolio