All segments reported growth, with performance well distributed between volume and price increases. There's no stopping the world's leading beauty brand, which is systematically outgrowing its market despite having long since reached critical mass.

The group has absorbed the slowdown in North Asia and mainland China remarkably well - unlike Estée Lauder, which has borne the brunt.

Although very modest over the last six months, growth in China remains in positive territory. Naturally, all eyes remain on the dynamism - and potential recovery - of the Chinese market.

In any case, L'Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus's four-year tenure has been a resounding success. It wasn't easy to succeed the dictatorial but brilliant Jean-Paul Agon - nicknamed "the Bismarck of beauty" by an analyst whose name we won't mention - but so far, he's done a great job.

He has presided over six half-years of sustained growth, during which the Group's operating profit rose by a further 45%. Shareholders can therefore regard the transition as supremely successful.

Still on the subject of the half-year results published at the beginning of the month: there's no need to worry about cash flow, which is impacted as usual at this time of year by restocking; it's in the second half of the year that stocks are sold off and the coffers fill up again.

L'Oréal should generate between EUR6 and EUR6.5 billion in free cash flow this year. It is noteworthy that its current valuation, as a multiple of its free cash flow, is exactly comparable to that of Coty. Headed by a former L'Oréal employee, the latter has neither the performance nor the financial strength of the former.