Henkel targets UK’s £19m hair gloss market with Schwarzkopf Live

Henkel enters a UK hair gloss market growing 21%

Henkel Consumer Brands UK & Ireland is investing in temporary hair gloss through Schwarzkopf Live as it seeks growth in a UK category worth £19m. Cosmetics Business reports that the company is backing the segment as a route to attracting shoppers to its broader hair colour business.

UK hair gloss sales have grown 21%, according to Circana figures cited by Cosmetics Business. The outlet links that expansion to demand for colouring options that cost less, require less effort and carry less commitment than longer-lasting treatments.

Henkel’s entry is Live Go Gloss, a temporary treatment designed for a five-minute application in the shower. According to Cosmetics Business, the product claims to retain its colour for up to eight washes.

Schwarzkopf Live brings an established UK position

Schwarzkopf Live is already the UK’s second-largest at-home hair colour brand, Cosmetics Business reports. Henkel is therefore entering glossing through an established consumer brand rather than building a separate identity for the category.

The growth gap with the wider market is substantial. Stefan Pichler, general manager of Henkel Consumer Brands UK & Ireland, told Cosmetics Business that colourants overall were growing 5%. He put glosses at around 8% of the colourant market, making them a relatively small segment despite their faster expansion.

Cosmetics Business also identifies a change in beauty preferences behind the opportunity: some consumers are moving away from the restrained, highly polished appearance associated with the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic towards more colourful personal expression. That gives temporary colour a role beyond maintaining an existing shade.

Pichler sees a potential route into longer-lasting colour

Pichler told Cosmetics Business that shoppers want products that let them refresh their current colour or experiment with another shade without making a lasting change. He described demand for options that wash out after roughly eight to ten washes.

Henkel believes that experimentation could eventually encourage customers to buy semi-permanent or permanent colour. Pichler was explicit, however, that the company does not yet have official data supporting that progression. The proposed commercial benefit remains a hypothesis rather than a demonstrated customer journey.

Colourants are a priority for Henkel Consumer Brands UK & Ireland, Pichler said. He told Cosmetics Business that the business was allocating a disproportionately large share of funding to support its brands, signalling the importance of the category within its investment choices.

Henkel aims to establish its position before 2027

According to Cosmetics Business, Henkel wants to strengthen Live Go Gloss’s position with UK and Irish shoppers before the regional category becomes more mature in 2027. Its stated ambition is to make the product a preferred choice for straightforward temporary colouring.

For brands assessing UK entry, the competitive implication is that a fast-growing niche is already attracting investment from an established colourant supplier. The distinction between markets also matters: the £19m valuation and 21% growth figure describe the UK, while Henkel’s stated commercial focus covers both the UK and Ireland. Those figures should not be treated as a measure of Irish demand.