Focus On Personal Care: Haircare

Focus On Personal Care: Haircare by Julia Glotz

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Publishing: 11 January

Advertising deadline: 2 January

Submissions deadline: 18 December

The Story

The haircare market is getting personal. No longer are brands catering for simple hair types like dry or oily. They are promising to keep long hair healthy, to ‘de-frizz and illuminate’ or to straighten with Brazilian Keratin. All of which means shoppers can, in theory, choose a regime that matches their exact hair type. Yet all this choice doesn’t seem to have boosted sales. Only three of the top 10 shampoo brands are in growth. So just how much of a draw are these hyper-personalised offerings? What are the growing brands doing right? And can the category mitigate the effect of consumers washing their hair less often?

Key themes:

Consumer behaviour: As working from home takes hold and women grow their hair longer, hair washing is a less regular occurrence. To what extent is consumer behaviour influencing haircare sales?

Brands: Head & Shoulders has added just shy of £4m to its value, and OGX is up £1.5m. That’s all the more impressive considering most other brands in the top 10 are in value decline. What are these brands doing right? And what separates the winners from the losers?

Innovation: A number of highly personalised ranges have come onto the market. To what extent are these innovations attracting consumers? And are there any other new products worth noting? For example, the charcoal trend

Nielsen haircare data: Explain the rise and fall of the top 5 shampoo and top 5 conditioner brands.

Grey hair: This seems to have become a particular area of innovation. Why now? And which strategy is better – defying greys or embracing them?