China’s haircare market reached RMB 67.8 billion in 2024 full year, and RMB 34.1 billion in the first six month of 2025, with a CAGR of 3.4% since 2019. In this article, haircare products include shampoo, conditioner, hair masks, scalp care, hair dye and perm products, and styling products. In the first half of 2025, online haircare sales passed RMB 34 billion, up 20.7% from a year earlier, and consumers in China bought 618 million pieces, up 34.4% from the previous year.
The market, in total, adds about 3% a year while online sales grow above 20%, so the growth is happening online and offline’s share of sales keeps falling. The shift also changes what an average sale looks like. Consumers bought 34.4% more pieces online while spending only 20.7% more money, so the average item online got cheaper. Brands meet a bigger but cheaper market online, and the premium money sits in narrower segments such as scalp care. Online, the sales are also moving between platforms, with JD up 65%, Douyin up 42%, and Tmall down 10% as traffic fragments across platforms and users migrate. Haircare sits inside a larger beauty market: retail sales of cosmetics in China reached RMB 465.3 billion in 2025, up 5.1% from 2024.
The clearest shift in demand is toward scalp care and anti-hair-loss products. More than 80% of consumers report that they have scalp or hair problems, and hair loss ranks first among them, named by over half. Haircare also draws heavy discussion on social media. On Rednote, notes about fuller hair have passed 4.8 million.
Shampoo is starting to sell like skincare
In the haircare market in China, anti-dandruff is still one of the most wanted functions in shampoo for consumers to consider buying. Head & Shoulders (海飞丝) led purchases at 21.1% in a June 2025 survey (N=1,850), and Clear (清扬), another anti-dandruff brand, ranked third at 18.9%. Both brands’ classic lines sell at everyday prices. Anti-dandruff is no longer the only function consumers look for. Oil, itching, and hair loss have become key words of scalp care. Discussion of anti-dandruff has started to decline, while discussion of scalp care benefits grew 198% and discussion of sensitive scalp products grew 288% in the year through March 2025.
Brands are responding with skincare-style products. KANS (韩束), a skincare company, uses the peptides from its face products in its scalp care lines, targeting oil, itching, flakes, and flat roots. Its parent company also runs Jifang (极方), a separate brand aimed at mid-to-high-end anti-hair-loss care. KIMTRUE (且初) launched an anti-hair-loss scalp essence, and KONO patented a root-lifting technology in 2025. Scalp serums, pre-wash oils, and hair masks are being added next to shampoo, similar to the multi-step routine in skincare. Prices for the basic products remain standard price, and the extra spending comes from the additional purchase decisions, such as consumers buy a serum or a mask on top of their daily shampoo, from the same brand or a different one.
International and domestic brands win the market in different categories
Shampoo is the biggest category in the haircare market in China. Online sales of hair cleansing products reached RMB 17.97 billion in the first half of 2025, up 21.6% from a year earlier. It is also the category that is mostly led by international brands. P&G held 33.5% of haircare sales and Unilever 10.9% in 2023. The June 2025 survey shows a similar picture. The seven most purchased shampoo brands are all international, and the highest domestic name, Adolph (阿道夫), ranks eighth at 15.6%. The existing time of brands entering the haircare market in China explains much of the ranking.
The first-mover advantage in China’s hair care market
Head & Shoulders opened the market with P&G’s entry into China in 1988, selling anti-dandruff shampoo at RMB 19 a bottle, and it still leads purchases in 2025 at 21.1%. A brand picked early keeps being bought for decades, and most of the early entrants were P&G’s and Unilever’s, which is why the top of the survey is international. The newer domestic names compete on scalp care instead, where no brand has that kind of history.
The second category is hair caring products, which covers conditioners, hair masks, and serums. Online sales reached RMB 7.4 billion in the first half of 2025, up 19.6%. Domestic brands held 12 of the top 20 online spots in the first half of 2025, but international brands took about 80% of the sales in that group. The gap between seats and sales has two causes. First, most of the domestic brands entered through scalp care and anti-hair-loss products. These sections grow fast, but they are still small next to conditioners and masks, so a brand can lead its niche and still book a modest revenue.
Why domestic dominance in ranking hasn’t translated to sales
Moreover, the value of the category concentrates in premium treatments. Kérastase (卡诗), a salon brand, sells masks and treatments at salon prices, and that alone brought RMB 1.95 billion in the first six months of 2025, about a quarter of the whole category. Its owner L’Oréal, whose global sales set a record in 2025, said its premium beauty business in China returned to growth and grew ahead of the market in the second half of the year. None of the twelve domestic brands has a premium line of that scale yet.
Hair dye and perm products are the third category. Online sales were RMB 5.74 billion in the first half of 2025, up 17.2%. That is the slowest growth of the three. Traditional domestic companies feel the pressure in every category. Lafang (拉芳家化) made RMB 627 million in revenue in the first three quarters of 2025, with a net profit of RMB 12.6 million. For new entrants, the competition depends on the category. In mass shampoo it is P&G and Unilever. In premium care it is Kérastase, and in scalp care it is a crowd of young domestic brands.
Scalp care category keeps growing, and rising prices drive it
Scalp care is still a small category in the haircare market in China, and it grows on price. In 2025, scalp care products sold over RMB 754 million on Taobao and Tmall, up 13.71% from 2024, while the number of items sold grew only 0.83%. Almost all the growth came from buyers paying more per item. They pay more for anti-hair-loss, hair strengthening, and hair growth, and hair-growth products alone grew 36.88%. The data suggests that not much growth on total items sold, however, leads to a significant growth on total sales, which indicates that existing clients are willing to pay extra money for functionality.
The demand itself is twenty years old. Bawang (霸王), which sits 11th in the brand table above at 13.5%, built its name on anti-hair-loss shampoo in the mid-2000s. Back then the answer was a medicated shampoo. Today consumers add scalp serums and oils on top of their wash, and sales of these grew over 400% in the year to March 2025, from a small base.
The space is small, and it is already contested from two sides. Spes (诗裴丝), Off&Relax, Yangyuanqing (养元青), and Banmu Huatian (半亩花田) built their whole product lines around anti-hair-loss and scalp care. Kérastase came in from the premium end, and its Black Diamond hair oil was the top-selling hair oil on Taobao and JD in the year to March 2025. A new entrant has to take buyers from the young specialists or from a salon brand, and either way the product needs proof that it works.
Key takeaways on haircare market in China
- The haircare market in China grew about 3.4% a year between 2019 and 2024, reaching RMB 67.8 billion. A market this slow adds little new money each year, so a brand grows mainly by taking sales from other brands, and the clearest place to do that is scalp care.
- The upgrade covers every product type. In the first half of 2025, online sales of shampoo grew 21.6%, hair care 19.6%, and dye and perm 17.2%, so consumers are spending more on hair across the board, from washing to coloring.
- Scalp care grows on price. On Taobao and Tmall in 2025, sales rose 13.71% while volume barely moved, so the growth came from consumers paying more per item, and it lands on serums and oils.
- Anti-hair-loss demand is old and reliable. Bawang built the category twenty years ago, and 13.5% of respondents in a June 2025 survey (N=1,850) still list it among the brands they buy. The demand is already there, so the opening for new brands is the format, serums and treatments instead of one more shampoo.
- The growth now happens online. Online haircare sales grew 20.7% in the first half of 2025 while the market in total adds about 3% a year, so offline keeps losing share. Even within online the ground is shifting, with JD up 65%, Douyin up 42%, and Tmall down 10%, so the platform choice is part of the growth plan.
Author: Ann-Kristin Knoerr, edited by Ming Yii Lai, with additional research by Zekai Zhang
