Warsaw cosmetics company Laboratorium Kosmetyczne Dr Irena Eris is one of the largest founding members of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for High Technology.

Irena Eris, who has a doctoral degree in pharmaceutics, founded the company in 1983 with money inherited from her mother. She started out with a small cosmetics production room in Warsaw, employing just one worker and producing one kind of cream. Today, Eris owns the largest cosmetics empire in the country. Market research shows that the Dr Irena Eris brand is one of the most highly valued and best-known brands in Poland.

Initially, Eris' monthly output was just 3,000 jars, which were filled by hand and distributed to stores in the family car by her husband and company co-founder, Henryk Orfinger. After three years, during which time demand for her face creams increased significantly, her company began to develop rapidly. But it was not until 1989, when Poland shook off communism, that real expansion was possible. By 1993, Eris had opened a state-of-the-art factory with computer-controlled production lines in Piaseczno on the outskirts of Warsaw. In this way, what used to be a cottage industry was transformed into a large company with laboratories that the most renowned cosmetics companies in the world would be proud to own.

Today, Laboratorium Kosmetyczne Dr Irena Eris employs more than 500 people and produces almost 5,400 cosmetics, most of which are either sold in retail stores or used in beauty salons. Monthly output is now more than 1.4 million units. Dr Irena Eris products are known all over the world and are sold in many countries including Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Ireland, the United States, and even Thailand.

There are 26 Dr Irena Eris Cosmetics Institutes in Poland and one each in Prague, in the Czech Republic; Kaliningrad, Russia; and Bogota, Colombia. The company also owns two Polish spa hotels in Krynica-Zdrój and Wzgórza Dylewskie near Ostróda in northeastern Poland. Currently, Laboratorium Kosmetyczne Dr Irena Eris is unquestionably the leading cosmetics firm in Central and Eastern Europe with regard to skin care. The Piaseczno laboratory is also the most innovative in Poland, focusing on scientific research.

Today the production of good skin-care cosmetics relies heavily on technology. Their production is akin to that of pharmaceuticals, and hygiene and accuracy are paramount. However, for a cosmetic to be truly safe and effective, scientific input is required. Laboratorium Kosmetyczne Dr Irena Eris is the only cosmetics company in Poland, and one of just a few in Europe and the world, to have its own scientific research center.

At the Dr Irena Eris scientific research center, a team of biologists, chemists, doctors, dermatologists and allergists carry out in vitro and in vivo research on skin cells. In vitro research determines the skin's reaction to the active ingredients in the cosmetics and thus the optimum concentration and combination of these ingredients in a given product. In vivo research determines the effectiveness of particular ingredients in a product. Research results are presented at international conferences and published in scientific magazines. The Dr Irena Eris research center presents its findings alongside scientists from leading cosmetics firms such as Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, Procter and Gamble, and ZEBET. The Dr Irena Eris center cooperates with other research centers in Poland, including the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology, the University of Warsaw's Biology Department, and the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. It also works with centers abroad, such as the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Germany.

Eris has from the beginning been the company's director for research and development. She graduated from the Pharmaceutics Department of the Medical University of Warsaw. While still in college she started making cosmetics for herself and friends at a university laboratory. She studied for a doctorate at Berlin's Humboldt University. Today, besides supervising research, she is involved with the development of new products and oversees their production.

"The acceptance of our company as one of the founding members of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for High Technology, alongside renowned research centers and schools, shows that our scientific research has contributed to the development of the cosmetics industry," Eris says. "It also confirms that our work and innovations are highly regarded. We hope that through cooperation with the chamber we will contribute to the development of entrepreneurship based on knowledge and innovation."

Tadeusz Belerski