L'Oréal's most premium brand has also joined the cutthroat competition in the hair and body care sector.

Recently, Qingyan noticed that Clarins and La Maison de Beauté Carita, the ultra-luxury skincare brand under L'Oréal, have completed the filing of multiple hair care products in China, marking the first time both brands have officially introduced their hair care lines to the Chinese market.

An interesting detail is that the filing time of the two major brands' hair care products is almost synchronized. In fact, it is not only these two high-end brands, but also brands such as Pantene and Off&Relax, the hair care brand under Proya, that are continuously deploying the high-end hair care track. The high-end hair care sector has already seen fierce competition across the board.

International Giants Bring Skincare Ingredients "To The Scalp"

From a global market perspective, Clarins' layout in hair care is not new, but this is the brand's first complete hair and scalp care line.

In July this year, Clarins officially announced the launch of a brand new hair care line named "Hair Therapy", which focuses on the long-term health management of scalp and hair strands with "skincare-level formulation philosophy".

It is worth mentioning that Clarins has already made layouts in the hair care category before, and once entered the Chinese market, which can be traced back to the men's series Vitality Shampoo that completed the filing in 2009. However, this "Hair Therapy" line is defined by the group as "the first complete hair and scalp care series", which builds a complete hair care system with 5 core products.

It is understood that the core proposition of the "Hair Therapy" line launched by Clarins this time is "the scalp itself is a complete piece of skin". Relying on the R&D laboratory that shares the same origin with facial skincare, this line develops exclusive F_03 technology, compounding two plant active ingredients, organic white iris extract and saffron flower polyphenols, to help promote hair renewal, and creates a total of 5 products including strengthening scalp serum, shampoo, conditioner, hair mask and hair care oil.

Sourced from Clarins official website

Qingyan noticed that the "Precious Luxury Care" hair care product line that recently completed the filing of imported cosmetics in China is exactly this "Hair Therapy" series. Except for the hair mask that has not been filed, the remaining 4 products have all completed the filing.

Sourced from the imported ordinary cosmetics filing platform of the National Medical Products Administration

In addition, Qingyan's sorting found that there are far more international brands than just Clarins that migrate skincare ingredients/technologies to the high-end hair care track.

There are two types of core players coexisting in the current international high-end hair care market: one is professional hair care brands that deeply cultivate the salon channel, and the other is top skincare brands that cross-border into the hair care sector. The former builds professional trust endorsement relying on salon genes, while the latter directly reuses skincare laboratories, core active ingredients and technical patents, and the two forces jointly raise the value ceiling of high-end hair care.

Guerlain follows a similar path to Clarins. In June this year, multiple hair care products of Guerlain's Abeille Royale series completed domestic filing. This series is derived from its signature Abeille Royale skincare line, extending the accumulated "black bee honey repair technology" in the skincare line to the scalp and hair strands, with product lines covering hair care serum, repair hair mask, conditioner, shampoo and other products, and the price of each product is above 750 yuan.

Sourced from Guerlain official website

In addition, SENSAI under Kao and South Korean skincare brand Medicube also enter the scalp care sector with skincare technologies, with prices concentrated in the range of 200 to 750 yuan.

This group of long-established players in the skincare field and new entrants in the hair care track all output the skincare research results that the brands have accumulated for a long time, to support the high value sense of their products. Among many international groups, L'Oréal is a player with a very comprehensive layout in the high-end hair care track.

Data from Global Market Insights shows that L'Oréal Group accounts for about 24.9% of the global high-end hair care market in 2025. It is understood that L'Oréal Professional Products Division has a total of 10 brands, spanning high-end lines such as Kérastase and Shu Uemura Art of Hair, as well as mass salon lines such as L'Oréal Paris Hair Care and Matrix.

Among them, Kérastase is positioned by L'Oréal as the "absolute core" of the professional hair care sector. As the second largest market of Kérastase in the world, China has long seen the brand rank firmly at the top of the hair care category on mainstream domestic e-commerce platforms, forming an overwhelming leading position in the high-end hair care track. In China, on the one hand, Kérastase taps into segmented opportunities with new products such as "Hairline Mask", on the other hand, it stabilizes its user base and repurchase base with classic best-selling items such as "Camellia Hair Care Oil".

In addition, to further supplement the incremental growth of the track, L'Oréal acquired the high-end professional hair care brand COLOR WOW in 2025. This brand is characterized by a small number of SKUs and strong visual effects, priced in the range of 200-300 yuan, filling the gap between the positioning below Kérastase and above mass brands.

At present, COLOR WOW Tmall Global Flagship Store has put 4 products on the shelves (one product has multiple links), which are smoothing spray, cleansing spray, polishing hair mask and shampoo. Among them, the smoothing spray has topped the Tmall repair hair care spray positive review list.

COLOR WOW product material picture

Not only that, Qingyan also noticed that Carita, the luxury skincare brand under L'Oréal, also completed the filing of the "Carita Brightening & Moisturizing" hair care series in June 2026. The products include shampoo, hair mask and hair care oil, which have not been officially put on the shelves in official channels for the time being.

Sourced from the Cosmetics Supervision APP

It is understood that Carita is called by L'Oréal "the most luxurious skincare brand of the group". It started as a hair salon in 1945, and in the following decades, it continued to lead the development of the skincare industry through innovations in exfoliating products, injection products and beauty devices.

Sourced from L'Oréal official website and Carita Tmall Flagship Store

The "Brightening & Moisturizing" hair care series launched this year is the first independent product line specially targeted at the hair care market launched by Carita after returning to the high-end hair care sector.

Recently, Carita has released multiple brand history contents on social media platforms, starting to strengthen its own origin gene in hair care. For example, the founding sisters of the brand once left a sentence: "Hair is an exclamation mark on the silhouette." In their view, hairstyle is never just a decoration, it changes a woman's silhouette, and also changes the way she is seen. This may also be the preparation made by Carita for the landing of its hair care series in the Chinese market.

Interestingly, the filing time of Carita's hair care products basically coincides with the filing window of new hair care products of Guerlain and Clarins, which indirectly confirms the industry trend that top skincare brands are betting on the hair care sector.

Generally speaking, migrating the skincare system to the hair care track has become a common practice for leading international brands to deploy the high-end market. Brands begin to create hair care products with skincare R&D standards and formulation logic, and consumers have gradually developed the consumption habit of evaluating scalp and hair care products with the evaluation criteria for skincare products.

Avoiding the Home Turf of Big Brands, Domestic Brands Achieve High-end Growth Through Scientific Research Segmentation

If the high-end hair care logic of international big brands is to transfer the ingredients and R&D system of mature high-end skincare products to the hair care track to complete the high-end value closed loop, then what do domestic hair care brands rely on to persuade consumers to pay for the "high-end narrative" of local brands?

In the past few decades, the domestic hair care shelves have long been occupied by international mass brands such as Head & Shoulders, Pantene and Clear. They have completed the market education of basic hair care functions for decades, oil control and anti-dandruff have become the standard selling points of shampoo, and the mainstream price range of the market has long stayed at the level of dozens of yuan.

However, this price pattern is changing.

According to Qingyan Intelligence's "2026 Hair Care and Hairdressing Market Insight Report" (hereinafter referred to as "2026 Hair Care Market Report"), in the first half of 2026, the size of the hair care and hairdressing market grew to 46.4 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 7.97%.

From the price performance of the two mainstream channels of Taobao/Tmall and Douyin, the average price of each segmented category has basically reached more than 50 yuan, the average price of shampoo, the product with the highest use frequency, has also reached more than 70 yuan, and the average price of scalp essence in the Taobao/Tmall channel once reached 223 yuan. This also shows that Chinese consumers are willing to pay for the "added value" of products.

Sourced from Qingyan Intelligence

But to truly "raise" the price, domestic brands have not chosen to directly challenge the professional salon status of Kérastase and Olaplex, but anchored on scientific research endorsement and segmented demands to build their own trust system.

Among them, Off&Relax is a relatively representative case. According to Qingyan Intelligence's "2026 Hair Care Market Report", Off&Relax is the top-ranked domestic brand among the TOP20 hair care brands on Taobao/Tmall in the first half of 2026.

Sourced from Qingyan Intelligence

It is worth analyzing that different from the "skincare product thinking" of international big brands, Off&Relax focuses on Asian scalp care, builds a product matrix of volumizing, anti-hair loss and repair, and many mid-to-high price products have achieved considerable sales, leading the high-end competition of domestic hair care.

Off&Relax product material picture

In addition to Off&Relax, a number of new brands have also begun to make efforts in the mid-to-high end hair care market.

In March 2026, Ful