Hair care remains the second largest beauty and personal care category after skin care globally, generating USD75 million in 2017. Performance is largely driven by the healthy living movement as consumers are becoming more health conscious and looking for products that are better for them. With that in mind, consumers are looking to embrace their natural hair, reducing usage of certain hair care products that are associated with the heavy use of chemicals. At the same time, consumers’ hair care choices are largely driven by the expectation to have healthy hair with routines expanding to include more targeted solutions with clear benefits around the scalp and hair health.
Asia Pacific races ahead, while Western Europe lags behind
Asia Pacific emerges as the fastest growing region globally in the last five years, with volume consumption evolving rapidly in some large markets such as India where the population is expanding at a fast rate. At the same time, in China, growth is driven by premiumisation as consumers trade up to high-end products as their incomes increase. Western Europe, while remaining the third largest region in terms of actual value sales, has experienced a decline as consumers are adopting more natural looks with long hair, preferring to use fewer styling products and colourants and even washing their hair less, driven by the idea that over-washing hair is damaging for scalp health.
Healthy Living is contributing to hair routine expansion
Driven by the healthy living movement, consumers are increasingly prioritising hair health when purchasing hair care products, according to Euromonitor International’s Beauty Survey results in 2017. With this in mind, hair care routines are evolving to include multiple steps and more targeted product formats borrowed from skin care as a holistic approach towards beauty is adopted and consumers treat the hair as an extension of the skin. Thus hair care routines are no longer limited to traditional shampoos and rinse-off conditioners, as skin-inspired formats such as masks, serums and oils are adopted.
Skin health goals are being adopted into hair care routines as well. For example, within skin care, the healthy living movement is encouraging the proliferation of preventative regimes to avoid premature ageing. This is reflected in Euromonitor’s Beauty Survey where young consumers are looking for functionality claims to help maintain healthy looking skin and protect skin from environmental aggressors, such as sun exposure or pollution to avoid premature ageing. Similar claims are adopted by hair care as well since consumers increasingly realise that their hair is being damaged by sun exposure and pollution in the same way as skin.
Improving outlook for hair care
Hair care is forecasted to see a CAGR of 1.7% during 2017 to 2022 which is much higher than 0.2% CAGR experienced during 2012-2017. Hair care brands are expected to adopt food concepts with labels such as clean, natural ingredients and suitable for vegetarians appealing to consumers the most as they are adopting an holistic approach that treats skin, hair, body and mind as a whole entity. Furthermore, as participation in physical activities is growing globally, demand for athleisure hair care will accelerate with new products that protect and treat hair during exercise emerging.
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Find out more about Euromonitor International’s latest beauty findings in the ‘Voice of the Industry: Beauty and Personal Care’ report here.
By Kseniia Galenytska, senior analyst at Euromonitor International