Legend has it that she created her business at the age of 25, with 1,500 euros in her pocket, by concocting her products by hand in the kitchen.
“It’s not a legend, it’s reality,” confirms Kelly Massol from the outset.
Nothing suggested her future as an influential
business woman
at the head of a brand valued at 70 million euros.
At that time, in 2009, she worked for social security as a telephone advisor to pay her bills.
In her free time, she runs a forum called “Curls and Cotton,” where she shares her tips for maintaining natural curly hair, like hers.
And then takes a particular interest in hair care labels.
“Apps like Yuka didn’t exist yet.
We had to decipher the compositions ourselves and we realized that they were full of toxic ingredients from petrochemicals and endocrine disruptors,” recalls the 40-year-old businesswoman.
“There were mainly imported and very low quality straightening products.
Moreover, the packaging always displayed the words “for very dry hair”.
We never read: “For textured, curly or frizzy hair”.
They were only referred to by derogatory terms, when in reality, the hair was dry because the products were unsuitable, the gestures and the accessories too.
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Thanks to her discussions with some 15,000 women in this community, she began to make her first homemade shampoos and hair balms.
At the forefront of “clean beauty” and the “do-it-yourself” trend, she bans all controversial ingredients and favors “beautiful textures and good smells”.
“Today, half of the formulas in our range are the same as those I have created since 2009. It is still me who is the formulator of the brand,” she insists, explaining that she has started to industrialize the process in 2015 in a laboratory located in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.
From DASS to entrepreneurship
The one who dreamed, when younger, of being a lawyer or literary critic finally takes a completely different path, and her destiny in her own hands.
The native of Val d'Oise leaves her job at Health Insurance and starts from scratch to create her own business.
“I launched Les Secrets de Loly in order to respond to a request which was really not addressed and which nevertheless corresponded to an almost primary need: that of having a hair routine for textured hair which does not damage it and which take care of it.
There was none in France.
We had to ask friends to bring us some from New York, to buy imported products that didn't really comply with the legislation, or to go to neighborhoods where we didn't necessarily want to go," says -she.
The name of her brand is inspired by the nickname given to her by her uncle, the only father figure of her childhood, who always supported and encouraged her to follow her dreams.
It was also he who partly educated her, with her grandmother Dorothée, a mathematics professor at the Sorbonne, who took her in at the age of six months.
Because if she likes to wear toned-down fuchsia dresses and matching manicures, the Parisian hasn't always seen life in pink.
Abandoned by her mother when she was a baby, little “Loly” spent her childhood in a 15m2 studio in Pigalle, with a shower and toilet on the landing, without hot water.
Her weeks are punctuated by Sunday hair appointments in the salon, often very “long” and “unpleasant”, as she describes them in an episode of the Franceinfo podcast “#MaParole”.
The day her grandmother died, the 11-year-old girl was placed in a boarding house (now closed), which she described as “a machine for crushing people”.
She tried to live with her mother for two years, but the relationship was tumultuous and the blows rained down, to the point that the child asked a social worker to be placed in a foster family.
At the age of 17, I said to myself: "I'm going to become very rich, I'll have plastic surgery and I'll have all the men at my feet"!
Kelly Massol
After living from home to home until she was 21, she took on odd jobs to pay her own rent, while studying law at the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas.
And does not lose sight of her objective, motivated by a fierce desire for social advancement.
“I am a woman who knows what she wants and what she is worth.
I knew it very young.
At the age of 17, I said to myself: 'I'm going to become very rich, I'll have cosmetic surgery and I'll have all the men at my feet!', she says.
At least two of the three wishes will be granted.
Kelly Massol, founder of Secrets de Loly.
Press/Les Secrets de Loly
A “new face” of entrepreneurship
No obstacle seems to dissuade the “self-made woman”, who started from nothing, from accomplishing her project.
“I embarked on this adventure without even asking myself any questions.
I had no fear,” she says.
When I opened my first store in Paris in the 12th arrondissement in 2012, people said to me: "How are you going to pay the rent?"
Well, I told them that I planned to make sales!
And the business was profitable from day one.”
The proof in figures: the first year, Les Secrets de Loly achieved a turnover of 150,000 euros.
A challenge that was not won in advance, as the young woman was not taken seriously in her early days, enduring refusals from distributors and bankers, who did not yet understand the extent of the wait and the market to invest.
The brand is self-financed from 2009 to 2022, without any bank loans or fundraising.
If she does not want to “feed the cliché of skin color” or define herself as a victim of sexism, this daughter of a Martinican father and a Guadeloupean mother admits: “I took 13 years before bringing in funds, undoubtedly because I am a woman, because I come from diversity, and because I am aimed at a specific part of the hair population.
Moreover, distributors have already told me: 'These customers you are targeting, they don't spend money, and they will never buy shampoos at these prices',” she laments.
“Today, the company is experiencing hypergrowth.
The machine is becoming so big that I need a new fund to structure myself and hire 24 people in 9 months,” she explains.
Also read: The 10 pioneers behind the cosmetics brands of tomorrow
The soul of a business leader and a sense of business that she did not learn at university.
“There is an extremely elitist image of entrepreneurship that has been created with the world of start-ups.
There is a preconceived idea that you cannot be an entrepreneur if you have not studied well, if you do not have a good network... We also think that being an entrepreneur consists above all of seeking funds.
In reality, the main thing is to create value, to have a good product, a good idea.
And everyone can do that,” she assures, before proclaiming: “It’s time to show another face of entrepreneurship.
So many women have told me: "Here is finally someone with whom we identify, someone who looks like us and who can say that it is possible to succeed in France by being curvy, from diversity, and by wearing natural hair."
»
It is possible to succeed in France by being curvy, from diversity, and by wearing natural hair
Kelly Massol
Kelly Massol, founder of Secrets de Loly.
Press/Les Secrets de Loly
From Xavier Niel to Kim Kardashian
His models in terms of entrepreneurship?
“In my opinion, Xavier Niel is the entrepreneur par excellence.
He creates things, he tries, he fails, he gets back in the saddle.
He started from almost nothing.
Obviously, it’s a journey that inspires me,” she declares instantly.
As for women, she mentions nothing less than millionaire American entrepreneurs.
“A few years ago, everyone made fun of Kim Kardashian, but I thought she was a marketing genius.
People hadn't caught on to her yet, but I always had great admiration for her.
Just as I also admire Beyoncé’s perfectionism,” she quotes.
In the fourth season of the show
“
Who Wants to Be My Partner?”
broadcast on M6 in recent months, where her face became known to the general public, she is the one who sets an example for young entrepreneurs.
Behind the hyperfeminine trappings of this colorful character, “always perfectly made-up and dressed in pretty dresses”, in her own words, remains a true leader who stood out for her strength and outspokenness.
With the tips of her ultra-glamorous nails, she does not hesitate to take out the checkbook and announce staggering sums to support the projects in which she believes.
However, initially, the channel was not convinced to make Kelly Massol a member of its jury.
“Basically, it was me who went to them in 2022 with the aim of joining the previous season, but they found me too “benevolent”, she reveals. “So as I absolutely wanted to participate on the program, I sponsored the show with a television commercial that projected my face on the screen for two weeks… When you can't go through the door, you go through the window!”
she adds, laughing. A force of persuasion, she joined the casting and in 2023, was called back by production, which was looking for new, more atypical profiles.
Kelly and Loly
“Kelly is the woman you see on screen.
This is my true personality,” she assures, describing herself as “generous, emphatic, caring, laughing loudly.”
But also “whole”, “a little too cash” and endowed with “abrupt honesty”.
A character without half measures which led to a dispute with an employee in 2019, leading to a wave of resignations and the collapse of the Secrets de Loly marketing department.
The SME explodes, but holds on, then gets back up.
After this gray area, it’s the big break.
In September 2022, the slogan of its new campaign,
“
My hair, my power” (“My hair, my power” in French), displayed in the metro, on the Champs-Élysées and on television, made an impression.
Because, on the other side of the mirror, “Loly” is another person: a working woman, an intrepid and daring business leader.
Like Samson who drew his strength from his opulent hair, she seems invincible.
Read also: Embrace your white hair, accept your natural texture: the “
hair positive
” phenomenon is shaking up hair beauty standards
What bothers her about her potential status as a “model” female entrepreneur?
“This role means there is little room for moments of weakness... And someone as strong as me has them.
My weakness for sugar, for example!” she says with a laugh, before immediately continuing in a more serious tone: “My goal is rather to say: be the model you would have liked to have.
People are often looking for role models, when they should be looking for themselves.
You have all the cards in hand to be your own boss and best friend.
Be the role model you wish you had
Kelly Massol
She herself does not seek to be like anyone and claims it.
“I’m not one of the classical standards.
What was a disadvantage for many people for a very long time is one of my advantages today.
For example, wearing my natural curly hair out in the open, even though black women were asked to straighten or tie it back at work.
Or, the fact of being from diversity.
“It’s a wealth that some bosses of large cosmetics groups don’t always have,” she rejoices.
Also read: Nappy hair: the revenge of black women
Fifteen years after the launch of her brand, the one who strongly contributed to the movement of acceptance of natural textured hair in France recognizes that the beauty industry has evolved by including more types of hair and different beauties.
“Things have changed in recent years, I can't deny it,” she admits, before qualifying: “But above all it has become a high-growth market that everyone is starting to invest in.
Certainly, today, in all advertisements, the brands include a mixed race woman with curly or curly hair, but this is treacherous, because we never choose her too black and too curly, but just enough to tick the boxes. boxes of inclusiveness.
It always serves as an “alibi”.
And this does not always reflect a real commitment to inclusiveness in employee recruitment in particular.”
Kelly Massol, founder of Secrets de Loly.
Press/Les Secrets de Loly
The good life
Today, Kelly Massol is living her own fairy tale.
The dilapidated and cramped apartment of her childhood has been transformed into a wing of an 18th century castle with rooms classified as historic, which she rents in the Paris suburbs.
And even if she travels by jet and collects luxury accessories, the forty-year-old wants to stay well grounded, with both feet on the ground.
“It was the life I dreamed of, but sometimes I have trouble realizing that people work for me, that I hired 42 people, that we own new premises in the Marais,” admits. she said.
“I like to put things into perspective.
The heart is put into everything I do, but in the end, it remains just business.
We sell shampoos.”
His only regret?
“Sometimes, from having abandoned law studies.
I'm told I'm a good speaker, so maybe I would have been good at it.
Hey, I wonder if I'm not going to do like Kim Kardashian, exactly!”, she likes to imagine, referring to Kim Kardashian going to a law exam with an Hermès bag costing more than 100,000 euros.
"After all why not ?
Some women change paths at 50.
The
mindset
is not the same age as the body,” she
believes
.
As for hers, Kelly Massol says she did what was necessary to feel good about herself, as she predicted.
“First I had to succeed, and then I could correct what I wanted to correct physically.
“I have no taboo about saying that I have had cosmetic surgery,” she says.
And to clarify: “I had two breast reductions, I lost 55 kilos… I always fully assumed who I was, but my morbid obesity created an electric shock for me.
Not because I felt forced to do so by social pressure, but because it put my health at risk.
So, I became the woman I wanted to be.”
I became the woman I wanted to be
Kelly Massol
Conquering America
In an interview with the daily
Le Figaro
published in the issue of Tuesday March 8, 2022, Kelly Massol said she was aiming for a turnover of 25 million euros in 2023. Verdict?
“Of course I achieved this goal!
I only do what I say,” she certifies, before mentioning that Les Secrets de Loly has achieved more than 80 million turnover over the last four years.
Next step for the brand: the inauguration of an academy in the very chic 7th arrondissement of Paris, then opening hair salons in the process.
The founder also plans to explore the area of gray hair, but also that of hair loss, children, and even men….
Before conquering the foreign market.
Incidentally, she also dreams of being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.
And the list is still long.
“I want to continue to invest in the companies I have invested in.
Maybe also write a book to tell my story.
There are so many things to do, but I have to be able to find the right balance,” concedes the mother of two little boys.
“Before, I had all the time to dream and fail, but today, time is what I hold most dear.
I have to consciously choose my battles and what I devote my energy to.”
Today, time is the most precious thing I have
Kelly Massol
What would she like us to remember from her rich and inspiring story?
“Like the fable of the hare and the tortoise, beautiful things take time.
And for someone impatient for me, it’s extremely hard!” she says in a final burst of laughter.
The most notable celebrity hair transformations of 2023
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow34 photos
See the slideshow34 photos