In the efficacy hair and skin care market, there won't be another Perfect Diary.

Enter beauty retail stores like Sephora and Ulta in the United States or Douglas in Europe, and the sight on the shelves might surprise you: it's not just skincare products that take up a large amount of display space, but also hair care products. From basic cleansing to anti - dandruff, anti - hair loss, and then to products for scalp micro - ecosystem, protein bond repair, and heat damage resistance, the complexity of the hair care section is almost on par with that of the skincare section.

According to data from market research firm Circana, the high - end hair care retail market in the United States grew by 8% year - on - year in 2025, making it the fastest - growing category among all high - end beauty products, surpassing makeup (4%) and skincare (3%), and second only to perfume (5%). However, what's more worthy of attention than the growth rate is the internal structure of the category: basic shampoos and conditioners only achieved single - digit growth, while treatment and styling products - those high - value - added categories focusing on perm and dye repair, protein bond repair, and scalp health - expanded at double - digit rates. Among them, scalp care has maintained double - digit growth for three consecutive years, with the number of new product launches increasing by over 20% year - on - year, and the vast majority are treatment products.

A similar structural differentiation has also occurred in the Chinese market. According to industry data cited by Stefan Huang, the strategic director of Joy Group, the overall growth of the online hair and scalp care market in China almost stagnated in the first half of 2025, with a growth rate of only 0.09%. In contrast, the mid - to - high - end price segment expanded by 28% against the trend. During the same period, the mass - market price segment declined by 3%.

Industry analysts generally attribute this price increase to the popularity of "skinification of hair care", which means transplanting the ingredient narrative and efficacy logic of skincare into hair care, and constructing new payment reasons for consumers with concepts such as scalp micro - ecosystem, barrier repair, and anti - aging.

This change has also quickly spread to Chinese domestic beauty groups.

Since 2024, domestic beauty companies have almost collectively bet on efficacy - based hair and scalp care products: In February, Giant Biogene launched the scalp care brand Handeshi; in May, Proya Group launched the scalp micro - ecosystem brand Awaken Seeds, and Shangmei Group simultaneously launched the One Leaf scalp sensitivity care series; in June, Freda launched the micro - ecosystem hair and scalp care brand Soonmu, and Magic Family launched the "hair care with oil" brand Magic; in July, Chando Group also launched a sensitive scalp care series.

This is an unusually dense collective shift in the industry. However, to this day, a question remains to be truly verified: Can the efficacy - based hair and scalp care market, like the efficacy - based skincare market in the past, produce a new domestic brand worth 5 billion or even 10 billion yuan with the help of the "ingredient dividend"?

To answer this question, we need to look back at the two most familiar curves in the domestic beauty industry in the past few years - the makeup blockbusters like Perfect Diary and the efficacy - based skincare dividends like Runbaiyan and Kuadi. The former relied on aesthetic trends for volume growth, while the latter relied on ingredient narratives for premium pricing. However, neither of these two curves was able to truly build brand equity after three years. Today's efficacy - based hair and scalp care products happen to fall on the extended lines of these two curves.

The initial growth logic of the domestic hair and scalp care market is actually more like that of "makeup"

The large - scale emergence and growth of new domestic hair and scalp care brands almost all originated around the time of the pandemic. The first brands to emerge were not those emphasizing "scalp care", "micro - ecosystem", or "barrier repair" today, but a group of brands that quickly increased their sales volume by relying on fragrances, e - commerce blockbusters, short - video marketing, and sinking channels.

Looking back, the consumer psychology behind this round of growth was not actually "ingredient awareness", but more like a collective popularity of an aesthetic trend: consumers paid for the immediate visible improvement in appearance rather than investing in long - term scalp health.

"High - crowned head" became the most representative footnote of this round of growth. This East Asian aesthetic ideal centered around a fluffy and full head contour has accumulated 4.5 million notes on Xiaohongshu, making the hair volume on the top of the head, which makes the face look smaller, as important as skin glow in terms of appearance anxiety. It directly drove the demand for oil - controlling and hair - puffing products, and the brand that most accurately met this demand was Shifusi, founded in 2020.

Shifusi started with a sea - salt hair cleansing paste and then launched an "oil - controlling and fluffy dry shampoo spray" in 2021. With its minimalist usage logic of no - rinse, spray - and - puff, it achieved a cold start on Xiaohongshu and then achieved large - scale volume growth on Douyin. The brand told 36Kr that the cumulative sales of the dry shampoo spray have exceeded 100 million bottles to date, ranking first both online and offline and maintaining an "absolute lead" in this niche category.

The growth logic of Shifusi was described by its founder Zheng Rujing to the media as a development path of "high growth, small category, and low customer unit price". It is more similar to the approach of domestic makeup brands in the past, that is, to identify a specific appearance anxiety, provide an immediate, visible, and low - decision - cost solution, and then quickly amplify it through the platform's content and traffic mechanisms - this is essentially highly similar to the logic of Perfect Diary and Florasis' early success relying on lip makeup and eyeshadow, with the only difference being that the anxiety has shifted from the "face" to the "hair".

In fact, most of the fastest - growing products in the Chinese hair and scalp care market in the past few years also conform to this characteristic: scented shampoos, dry shampoo sprays, hair - puffing sprays, no - rinse hair care products... They often emphasize "immediate perception" rather than long - term treatment.

This "makeup - like" consumption logic is naturally more suitable for dissemination on content platforms. Because effects such as "fluffier hair", "more visible hair volume", "smoother hair", and "high - end fragrance" are all effects that are easy to visually express on short - video and social platforms. In contrast, "improvement of scalp micro - ecosystem", "barrier repair", and "reduction of oxidative damage" are naturally more abstract and more difficult to create an immediate consumption impulse.

Therefore, although international giants have actively entered the market at this stage, they often adopt a reserved stance.

According to 36Kr's research, L'Oréal, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble all launched products with the sub - label "fluffy" around 2024. However, most of them avoided spray products with immediate efficacy and mainly focused on shampoos and serums, mostly adding an SKU with a "fluffy" claim to their existing product portfolios for defensive positioning.

Taking shampoos as an example, these products achieve the final effect of fluffy hair by "controlling oil" during the scalp cleansing process, and the labels often read "silicone - free" - this is already an ingredient claim with market appeal. Historically, many hair care products contained certain water - insoluble silicones, which, while increasing hair smoothness and retaining moisture, could also cause hair to become flat and even leave residues - this situation is more pronounced in the relatively thick, hard, and straight hair of Asians.

It's also worth noting that these products often do not emphasize the fluffy effect alone but are often bundled with words such as "scalp health", "stronger hair", and "anti - hair loss". This is probably related to the traffic reward mechanism of stacking efficacy words on content platforms, but it can also be understood that the promotion of a single fluffy effect is not enough to support the long - term growth of a brand.

In fact, this is also a common problem faced by many "makeup - style hair and scalp care" brands later: the traffic comes quickly, but the repurchase rate and brand loyalty are not high.

Zheng Rujing also admitted to us that there is indeed a "physical ceiling" for the dry shampoo spray category. Therefore, Shifusi later tried to extend from "immediate fluffiness" to "portable scalp care". Only by entering the real care scenario can the brand potentially achieve a higher repurchase rate, stronger product barriers, and a longer product life cycle.

However, efficacy - based hair and scalp care products are rapidly becoming "affordable"

Today's efficacy - based hair and scalp care products are following the path that efficacy - based skincare products once took.

The needs of consumers in the hair and scalp care market have not changed fundamentally - whether it's oil control, anti - hair loss, anti - dandruff, or stronger hair, these needs have existed for a long time. What has really changed is that consumers now require brands to explain "why it's effective".

As a result, "ingredients" have become the new competitive language: peptides, hyaluronic acid, ceramides, probiotics, amino acids, collagen... A large number of discourse systems originally belonging to the skincare field have been quickly transplanted to the hair and scalp care market. However, the problem is that once the ingredient logic matures, the price system will also quickly become transparent, followed by inevitable terminal price comparisons.

The smallest 300ml size of Shifusi's new hair and scalp care product "Peptide Fluffy Bottle" with a focus on ingredients costs 84 yuan on Tmall's official flagship store; Pantene's shampoo with a fluffy function and added peptides in the smallest 530g size is sold for 79 yuan; L'Oréal's hyaluronic acid shampoo with a similar effect in the smallest 440ml size is priced at 72.5 yuan. In the market without ingredient labels but with the same efficacy claims, the price advantage of domestic brands almost disappears.

In fact, the model of applying the logic of efficacy - based skincare to the hair and scalp care market has been questioned by industry insiders. Xu Wenlei, the head of the product center of Sregular, once told industry media Jumeili that "using the logic of efficacy - based skincare in the hair and scalp care market... often ends up losing its original form and is difficult to sustain."

The biggest problem may lie in the fact that consumer loyalty in the hair and scalp care market is far lower than that in the skincare market. Jiang Jinjie, the co - founder of Shifusi, once admitted that due to the low loyalty, brands have to constantly wake up consumers, which will definitely cost a large amount of money - and this part of the expenditure will inevitably be passed on to consumers. In this regard, international daily - chemical giants with channel and scale advantages are naturally more price - competitive.

There is a solution to this problem. After observing that consumers want "verifiable efficacy" instead of "seemingly effective", Zheng Rujing hopes to use relevant R & D results to justify the added value of the products.

Peptides are most commonly discussed in the skincare field. They are short - chain amino acids that perform various functions, including acting as signaling molecules. Peptides are fragments of proteins that can send signals to the skin to produce more collagen and elastin, and proteins are the main components of hair.

When applying this raw material, Shifusi focuses on the penetration ability. According to Zheng Rujing, the product's import technology, combined with the extremely fine particle size of the peptide ingredients, has been verified by real - life tests to allow the peptide ingredients to penetrate into the scalp in a short time without affecting the post - washing effect. "Domestic brands are struggling in the red ocean of basic cleansing and concept addition," Zheng Rujing said. "But we have truly solved the penetration problem of the product."

Other brands hope to start from the most basic consumer awareness to build brand loyalty.

"Many consumers don't realize that their scalps need care until they have obvious dandruff, oiliness, or a receding hairline," Off&Relax told 36Kr. They hope that consumers can understand their scalp and hair types and realize whether they are in a sub - healthy state. Currently, Off&Relax has launched product combinations for different sub - healthy scalps.

As a brand under the Proya Group, Off&Relax also has product development, operation, and channel advantages that other hair - care - originated brands do not have. Some industry insiders believe that such hair and scalp care sub - brands backed by large cosmetics groups will be the ultimate beneficiaries of the high - end development in the hair and scalp care field. In 2025, Off&Relax's revenue reached 744 million yuan, a year - on - year increase of 102.19%, making it the third - largest brand under the Proya Group.

The end - point of the upward extension of efficacy - based products may be salons

Some industry insiders believe that the only way for efficacy - based hair and scalp care products to get out of the price war is through channel scarcity - this is a path that has been verified in the high - end hair care market in Europe and the United States.

A strong proof is that L'Oréal, the world's largest cosmetics group that started with hair dyes, classified the efficacy - based hair care brand Dercos under its Vichy brand into the "Dermatological Beauty Division" instead of the "Professional Hair Care Products Division" where most hair care products are located. This may mean that the scarcity under the concept of "professionalism" is the real answer to the premium of hair and scalp care products.

And the salon channel is one of the most effective shortcuts to build a professional product image.

Larissa Jensen, a global beauty industry consultant at Circana, said when interpreting the 2025 US hair care data in early 2026: "Salon brands are the absolute leaders in the high - end market. Consumers trust salon brands - that's where high - end development occurs. In the mass market, the share of salon brands is much smaller."

"If we trace back, there was almost no independent demand for hair care products in China before the 1990s," BaoLu, the owner of the independent salon ROLA in Shanghai, recalled to 36Kr. "In the 1990s and 2000s, Procter & Gamble and Unilever dominated the market. Consumers made all their hair care decisions by buying shampoos in supermarkets. About 10 years ago, overseas brands like Kérastase and Moroccanoil, which were originally only available in professional salons, started to be sold on e - commerce platforms and were used by more consumers as daily products."

In recent years, it has been very common for some overseas high - end hair care brands to test the Chinese market through salons. Xiaotian, a hairstylist who opened an independent salon Three Salon in the Wutong area of Shanghai, has been receiving free samples from Aveda, a brand under Estée Lauder, recently, but he doesn't like them.

Xiaotian told us that the personal preferences of professional hairstylists largely determine the products they choose. This preference is actually the result of long - term accumulation of styling styles and customer word - of - mouth, which makes their recommendations'very personalized' and therefore highly trusted by users.

"When stylists trust your brand, consumers will follow," said Riggs, the CEO of the American up - and - coming high - end hair care product Amika, to industry media Business of Fashion. This trust has become one of the strongest growth drivers for the brand.

BaoLu said that currently, the salon mainly uses some professional - grade Japanese salon products. The reason is simple: "They entered the market early, have the most complete product lines, and their price systems are the most friendly to us." Some brands even fund hairstylists from independent hair salons to study abroad. In BaoLu's view, these are all signs that brands attach great importance to the salon channel.

He also revealed that more and more domestic brands are starting to send him hair care products for seeding. Off&Relax also told us that they have focused on high - end salons and spas and will continue to deepen their efforts and upgrade their supporting products and services in the future.

Of course, entering the salon channel does not mean immediate dominance. Olaplex is a counter - example. This brand, which started in American professional salons and became popular through the "flow of professional products into the mass market", saw the collapse of the salon scarcity narrative that supported its high premium after quickly entering mass retail channels such as Sephora and Target. Its sales have been under pressure in recent years. This means that the scarce channel is not just a matter of entry threshold - it requires brands to resist the temptation of large - scale expansion in the long term.

In April this year, Olaplex launched a brand refresh, refocusing on the salon channel and creating a hairstylist alliance that includes long - term spokesperson and legendary hair colorist Tracey Cunningham. In July, Redken, a brand under the L'Oréal Group, also launched a new "art ambassador network" consisting of 20 hairstylists and hair colorists. Smaller independent brands rely on their founders. The Roz brand, founded by celebrity hairstylist Mara Roszak, quotes a large number of her work examples on the red carpet in its marketing to convey the signal of top - star trust in her.

From this perspective, you can also say that the logic of hair and scalp care products coincides with that of skincare again - consumers are willing to pay a premium for a certain sense of trust, whether this trust comes from the immediate fluffy effect, the sense