O Boticário

About the house

O Boticário began in 1977 in Curitiba, Paraná, as a small prescription compounding pharmacy. Miguel Krigsner is named as its founder, and the group says he opened the pharmacy himself. The brand's own blog names Acqua Fresca, a fragrance, as the first creation.

The first franchise store opened in the early 1980s, though sources differ on the year. The first store abroad was in Portugal, in 1985 or 1986 depending on the account. The group now describes itself as the biggest beauty franchise in the world, with more than 4,000 stores, and sources disagree on how many countries it reaches, giving figures that run from 15 or 16 to more than 40.

O Boticário is a business unit of Grupo Boticário, a privately held holding based in São José dos Pinhais, Paraná. The group added Eudora in 2011, Quem disse, berenice? in 2012, Vult in 2018 and Beleza na Web in 2019. Its non-profit arms are Fundação Grupo Boticário, set up in 1990 for nature conservation, and Instituto Grupo Boticário, set up in 2004 for social development. In 2011 a first factory outside Paraná was announced, at Camaçari in Bahia.

Malbec, a men's fragrance, launched in 2004. Consumidor Moderno, quoting a group executive, reports that it is made with wine alcohol distilled from wine or grape ferment, and that a limited Malbec Grand Reserva in August 2008 used wine alcohol macerated four years in oak barrels. A 2026 report cites Euromonitor placing Malbec third among the world's best-selling men's fragrance brands on 2025 retail value sales, and says Malbec Eau de Parfum sold about 140 units per minute in its first 13 days.

In 2019 the Egeo line released Egeo ON You and Egeo ON Me, made with Philyra, an AI tool from Symrise developed with IBM in 2018. Human perfumers reject or accept the candidates it proposes.