PARIS — La Roche-Posay has become the Title Partner of the French Challenger team, K-Challenge, for the 38th America’s Cup. It will compete under “La Roche-Posay Racing Team.”
Alexandra Reni-Catherine, international general manager at La Roche-Posay, the world’s leading dermocosmetics brand, said the tie-in makes sense for various reasons. “First, because we share the same DNA with the America’s Cup,” she said, referring to the world’s oldest sport trophy, “which is about how to drive performance through science.”
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“Second is we have French roots,” she continued. “And we have a culture of being a challenger. La Roche-Posay was a challenger in the past. What we also have in common is we both believe in care.
“If you want to win a race, it’s about how we care for one another on the boat, and that mindset of caring is really what we try to develop in La Roche-Posay,” Reni-Catherine said. “You don’t win alone, you win with a team. That’s how we approach skin care today as an ecosystem.”
The brand, which lends its name to a team for the first time, looks at the tie-in with the America’s Cup through a new lens. “We consider it as a living lab,” she explained. “We’re going to use the partnership to try out new formulas that are under development, to make sure that they are built for extreme conditions, for people who are top athletes racing in the most difficult conditions — UV exposure, wind, salty waters — and that really do not have time to properly care for their skin.”
La Roche-Posay will collect feedback on the athletes’ experience to co-build products. The brand has never done this before. In the scopes will be protection from sun damage and learning how to give faster recovery from repair products.
“The athletes will feel better in general during the race, after the race [and] recover quickly,” said Stéphan Kandler, chief executive officer of La Roche-Posay Racing Team. “It will be a very exciting journey to develop new products or to use products which are in current development and make them better.”
He called the America’s Cup “more than a yacht race. It’s a technical race.”
In the America’s Cup La Roche-Posay Racing Team will have a female crew member. It is to race in the Youth America’s Cup and Women’s America’s Cup, too. La Roche-Posay has helped design final touches on the team’s boat (think light colors), as well as the sailors’ uniforms.
Highly breathable sun care and skin care is the top goal. Reni-Catherine said the brand and sailing team “share the same dream of ultimate performance.”
La Roche-Posay’s parent L’Oréal has supported the America’s Cup Crew since 1995. “It has been one of our historic partners,” Kandler said.
Before the America’s Cup final, in Naples, Italy, on July 10, 2027, the six Challenger teams are to compete in preliminary regattas. Those will take place in Cagliari, Sardinia, in Italy, from May 21 to 24, 2026.
“What we’re striving for also is to scale a message of prevention against sun damage,” Reni-Catherine said. “It’s a message about behaviors, more than a message about brand advertising.”
