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milaburek
20th January 2025

Interning at L’Oréal

As applications season looms, we take a look at the experiences of a Manchester student completing a placement in the beauty industry
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Interning at L’Oréal
Antonia Caicedo @ Mancunion

With the new year having swept around the corner, we’re finally beginning to reemerge from the hibernation of the Christmas holidays. Gradually, with one bundled-up jumper less a day, we’re getting back into the swing of a routine… setting our alarms, revising for the exams we’ve put off all winter, and making sure we (try to) get the most out of our semester’s bus pass; “I’ll get my money’s worth this time, I know it!”

But this time of year comes with an added flavour for students. While first-years are scrambling over second-year accommodation, either regretfully signing a 10-bed house or managing to find the perfect deal, the search for summer internships for second-years is looming closer. Despite many of us likely having applied by now, it’s here that the waiting game begins; wondering whether we’ll get the job we really want and how our summer is going to pan out. Will we like the role? Who will we be working with? Does it even align with my career path?

January comes with a prescription of anxiety, but Antonia, a third-year philosophy and anthropology student, tells us all about her current year’s placement in London, at L’Oréal, and how the last place she expected to be ended up being the best.

Credit, DennisM @ Wikimedia Commons

When first sending out applications, Antonia described herself as very closed off to placements that didn’t necessarily fit the academia/research career path she wanted to pursue, so L’Oréal wasn’t originally at the top of her list. However, after interning there for the last few months, it’s safe to say it has become one of the best opportunities she has experienced yet.

Out of the four divisions L’Oréal has, Antonia works within the Dermatological Beauty (LDB) division in London; working closely with brands like La Roche-Possay, CeraVe, Vichy, and SkinCeuticals. Her role lies in the education team and involves corresponding with clinics and pharmacists to relay product-specific information (such as ingredients), target audience, and how to recommend the product itself. She explains how this happens either through training or an online academy, via a platform she helps to design and run; as well as training preparation, gifting and providing incentives.

La Roche Possay
Antonia Caicedo @ Mancunion

So, the big question is: how on earth does a role at L’Oréal compliment her studies as a philosophy and anthropology student? Antonia found herself asking the same question and was very much sceptical about what the outcome of this experience would be.

She admits that, at first, it seemed worlds apart from the focus of her studies. However, through adopting an anthropological approach (understanding people and immersing oneself into another person’s world), she has found her studies both applicable and useful to understanding and adapting to the typical 9-5. She explains how her understanding of people/nature has allowed her to connect with those she works with on a day-to-day basis, better adjusting the teaching platform in a way that works optimally for herself and her colleagues as a team. Even on a personal level, despite finding the environment very ‘foreign’ at first, Antonia has found that the skills she has gained through her degree have served her in adapting to the culture of the company and team.

She is vulnerable in admitting that the beauty industry is much deeper than meets the eye, filled with ‘capable’ and ‘admirable’ people who want to leave a positive, lasting impact on society. It has served as a reminder that stereotypes aren’t always the reality, and that the imagined superficial, Devil Wears Prada persona is exactly that: imagined.

In reality, this placement has changed Antonia’s perspective of the beauty world. Her position in such a wide-reaching company has provided insight into how well it’s constructed, both in regard to ethics and mental health, despite it often being such a heavily criticised industry.

Relating back to her degree, from both an anthropological and philosophical perspective, it’s been insightful for Antonia to understand how these industries affect us on a personal level. In our way of connecting with one another, our relationships with ourselves, and the responsibility of the beauty industry in making sure the term ‘beauty’ is something more authentic and relative to the consumer. No more superficial, norm-fitting coverups! Dare we say times are changing?

L’Oreal offices
Antonia Caicedo @ Mancunion

It’s not just about boosting your CV either, but the growth that Antonia finds will serve her for the rest of her life. From self-understanding, adaptability, and flexibility, but also connections, meeting new people, and making new friends; finding comfort in a new city, and realising that home is what you make it. These are memories that will last her a lifetime.

If Antonia has one piece of advice for any first/second-year students thinking about placement, it’s this: be open to all opportunities, even the ones that don’t necessarily fit the career path you want to pursue. Although, at first, Antonia was doubtful about how placement in a beauty company could align with her academic degree, she’s glad she took the leap. Because at the end of the day, as she has found, the whole point of placement is to learn. To be uncomfortable and adapt to the unknown. Landing a placement, in a role you wouldn’t have necessarily seen yourself in at first, challenges you to apply what your course has taught you in new settings.

Reflecting now, Antonia adds that it’s an opportunity to do something you wouldn’t have otherwise chosen – so when better than now? Take the leap. Give that opportunity a chance. See where it takes you, and, with a touch of serendipity, you never know the memories that’ll come out of it. Spontaneity could become your new best friend.


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