Grooming: soap slips as female skin care soars

It’s not exactly the sweet smell of success, but personal grooming is somewhat more fragrant than it was this time last year.

While soaps and deodorant have lost £17.9m, thanks to squeezed space in store and consumers increasingly shopping around for their smellies, the loss is an improvement on 2016’s performance, when sales fell £27.6m.

Elsewhere, a mix of range rationalisation and savvy innovations is paying off. Female skincare has turned in growth of £19.1m (4%) on volumes up 2.6%, with prices being driven up by increasingly premium product mixes.

“Innovation is a key driver,” says P&G group sales director Ian Morley. “We have worked together with retailers to return the skincare aisle to be a beauty destination again for the shopper. It’s important the shopper can find what they’re looking for.”

But the process hasn’t been entirely painless. P&G’s Olay is down 6.5% on volumes down 9.5% following its range cuts. Simple is down 2%, although it’s been buoyed by higher prices (volumes are down 7.4%). Premium NPD has helped. Unilever launched Vaseline Intensive Care Mature Skin Rejuvenation in September at £5.99 a pop. “Ageing skin is the number one trigger for UK women buying health & beauty products,” says brand manager Jamie Brooks.

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Lynx You by Unilever

With sales flagging, Lynx is doing its best to bring its unofficial status as the scent of male adolescence to an end. The result is You, giving the brand not only a more sophisticated, minimalist, gender-neutral look, but also a more complex scent. The latter - including notes of black pepper, black basil and coriander leaves - was created with Ann Gottlieb, a veteran of Estée Lauder and Calvin Klein fragrances. Lynx You has since added an Anthony Joshua variant.