Menard

Menard is a Japanese prestige cosmetics and fragrance house founded in 1959 by Daisuke Nonogawa, built on the philosophy that beauty begins with skincare. The company operates primarily through a direct-sales model across Japan and Asia, with a reputation for high-quality skincare formulations — including the Authent and Embellir lines — that have made Menard a trusted name in Japanese prestige beauty. Fragrance plays a secondary but consistent role in the brand offering: Menard perfumes are developed to complement the house's broader skincare identity, with compositions that lean toward the refined, feminine, and accessible luxury registers familiar to the Japanese prestige consumer. The brand does not pursue the international niche fragrance community as a primary audience, and its fragrances consequently receive limited coverage in the Western fragrance press despite genuine quality. Menard is a significant company in the context of Japanese beauty — one of several mid-sized Japanese prestige brands that operate successfully within Japan and Asia while remaining largely invisible to non-Asian markets. The house distributes through its own beauty advisors and retail network across Japan and selected Asian territories.