Hair Conditioners…Are they propelling hair care industry growth?

When Procter and gamble introduced hair conditioner in 70s, marketers could not foresee that a decade and two later it will capture 39% of the market share of $8.5 billion hair care product market in US alone. A report published by Advertising Age about the sales volume of Hair conditioner in US market alone reveals that sales and volumes are for the 52 weeks ending June 15, 2003 was of $793.1 million.

Why this market is growing at such a large pace?

Health and hygiene comes first before anything for today’s aware and look conscious consumers, believe marketing experts. The consumers today are more matured and more style conscious than in yester years.

Hair care products and other such cosmetic products shelf earlier were searched by women only. But now the situation has changed. Today, both men and women equally line up behind any cosmetic sales counter, hence increasing the target consumers considerably.

The marketers no more try to position their hair conditioner brands only among females. They create ad campaigns to allure both the gender equally.

So what it takes to manufacture such a product that has become a must and has found space of equal importance in both male and female bathrooms? Let’s look inside the hair conditioners to better understand the chemistry of these products.

Hair conditioner necessarily contains:

• Moisturizer: The role is to prevent your hair from drying. Usually these contain high proportions of humectants.
• Reconstructors: This is to give strength to your hair through hydrolyzed protein
• Acidifiers: It helps to keep your hair healthy even in acidic environment. It maintains the pH at about 2.5-3.5.
• Detanglers: To modify the hair surface by pH as acidifiers, and/or by coating it with polymers, as glossers.
• Thermal Protectors: It protects your hair against excessive heat especially when your hair stylist is trying to blow dry your hair or using hot rollers to give it a new shape.
• Glossers: This brings that shine to your hair that you always wanted.
• Eseential Fatty Acids: These helps fry hairs to become more soft and pliable just like natural sebum.

Besides these above mentioned ingredients, there are some other important chemicals that are used to manufacture good hair conditioners. Some of these are Surafactants, lubricants, fatty alcohols, Panthenol, Dimethicone, Sequestrants, for better function in hard water, Antistatic agents and Preservatives.

According to the new Packaged Facts report, Hair Care Products in the U.S., the total hair care market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.4% through 2010 reaching $8.5 billion. The top brands in market are Garnier, Kerastase Paris, Fudge, Koleston Perfect are a few top players in the market. The UK market for hair care products is approximately of £1 billion. The global scenario is equally encouraging for hair conditioner manufacturers. No wonder, in the coming years we see mushrooming of new brands on the shelf.

Recent advertising trends in promoting hair care products:

With over 43% growth in hair care advertising on TV during Jan-August 06 over Jan-August 05 and almost increasing the size by above 50 % in 2008, the hair care products have become one of the most seen ads on Indian Television.

The advertisers have found the key USP in benefits of the products while some still focus on pricing to compete with the "me too" brands in the market. Healthy hair, shining hair, bouncing hair, impressive styles are some of the benefits that are being highlights today to promote hair conditioners in the market.

Besides selling them separately, the trend of offering shampoo plus conditioner still holds a strategic place to cut the cost and as well as to add value in the shampoos. Moreover the marketers are presenting brand as unisexual in contrast to the earlier marketing trend of promoting such products as exclusively for women.

Scope of Hair conditioner market

The market is wide, across the culture and country. The recent reports by Euromonitor, Advertising Age, Ac Neilson and other leading research groups have unanimously acclaimed the growing market size of hair care products in general and conditioner in particular. They believe, besides traditional shampoo plus conditioner, color-enhancing conditioners are also popping up as manufacturers try to woo the growing group of semi-permanent hair-color users.