Suzanne LeRoux is founder and president of One Love Organics, a holistic skincare company dedicated to natural beauty and environmental stewardship. She is a case study in pursuing one’s passion and remembering one’s roots.
A successful lawyer with a B.S. from the University of Georgia and a J.D. from Southern Methodist University School of Law, LeRoux became fixated on the potential for plant-based skincare. Growing up on a farm in Odum, Georgia, to parents who also owned pharmacies, Suzanne was inspired to combine the healing power of plants with advanced skincare science to create healthy, luxurious formulas that work.
While maintaining a law practice on St. Simons Island, LeRoux embarked on formal studies in aromatherapy, integrative herbology, and cosmetic chemistry. She credits her husband, Chase, for encouraging her to put her appreciation of nature, analytical abilities, and serious love of a good serum to use to launch One Love Organics in 2010.
That business has since grown into an industry leader in green beauty—Yahoo named One Love one of the top thirteen best natural brands on the market. In 2015, the University of Georgia recognized One Love Organics as the eighth fastest growing company owned by UGA alumni in the Bulldog 100 rankings. Despite this exponential growth, One Love Organics’ products are manufactured in small batches in the company’s lab on St. Simons Island, Georgia. This maintains the integrity of the ingredients and the success of their results and contributes to the local economy.
Notably, One Love Organics owns Georgia’s only ECOCERT®-licensed manufacturing facility for natural and organic cosmetics and is one of only ten such facilities in the United States. (A rigorous third-party certification, ECOCERT® ensures that the lab and its production process meets the highest-quality, certified-organic, and environmentally friendly standards in the world.)
Today, One Love Organics—a brand built from the ground up—has garnered product zealots and global press attention and is distributed in high-end spas and retail shops throughout the United States and Canada. One Love is currently in over 150 retail locations, including Bluemercury, Free People, Pharmaca, South Moon Under and more. It has been featured on the Today Show, as well as in Allure, O Magazine, Glamour, People, US Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Blog coverage has included Glitter Guide, Refinery 29, Into the Gloss, The Coveteur, Byrdie, and Man Repeller.
In 2015, Garden & Gun named One Love Organics a finalist in its coveted Made in the South Awards. Additionally, its products have won the following honors from top national publications:
- 2016 Best Natural Cleanser: Vitamin B Enzyme Cleansing Oil, Glamour
- 2016 Travel Essential: Vitamin D Moisture Mist, Conde Nast Traveller
- 2015 Best Oil: Gardenia + Tea Antioxidant Body Serum, Yoga Journal
Ever a student, LeRoux was recently selected as one of only eight women from around the world to participate in Sephora’s inaugural Accelerate Program, an invitation-only initiative designed to help female-founded start-ups shape the future of the beauty industry. Upon completing a weeklong boot camp at Sephora’s San Francisco headquarters, she worked one-on-one with a leading industry expert for 10 months to further refine and expand the One Love Organics brand. Southern Living Magazine named Suzanne as an Innovator changing the south in 2016 and Allure.com recently featured One Love Organics’ as one of the nine leading green beauty companies founded by women.