Exclusive: Inside Suave’s next act post Unilever

Suave has been selling personal care products for nearly a century, and in recent years has existed as a well-known, if not particularly innovative, brand. “A little bit sleepy,” is how its SVP of Marketing Rachel Behm describes its last decade under Unilever. But now, just under two years since it was divested from the CPG giant, Suave is embarking on a fresh start.

The brand began in 1937 marketing hair tonics, and has grown to become a multi-category brand selling products for women, men, and children, with 250 million units sold annually and nearly $700 million in annual retail sales, according to Suave. Unilever owned Suave for nearly 30 years, buying then-owner Helene Curtis Industries in 1996 for $770 million. In 2023, it divested the brand, selling to private equity firm Yellow Wood Partners in an effort to “shift our portfolio towards strategic growth spaces,” Unilever’s then-president Esi Eggleston Bracey said in a statement. Suave now operates as a standalone company under the Suave Brands Company, led by Unilever vet Daniel Alter.

After the divesture, Suave started from scratch to “reinvigorate” the brand, Behm told Retail Brew, culminating in 33 product launches set for the first half of the year, starting in mid-February, that key into consumer trends while offering low-price products in categories that’ve seen rising prices.

“If you think about all the things that can get stale when a brand is kind of left alone for a number of years, those are the pieces we’re really trying to ratchet up,” she said.

Get your soaps up: While Suave says it’s in half of US households and known by 95% of US shoppers, it’s working to boost its quality perception and be recognized for its innovation and packaging.

To do so, Suave now has a brand new 75-person team, Behm said, many of whom are former Unilever execs, along with CPG vets from L’Oréal, P&G, and Johnson & Johnson. To prep for “future innovation and growth,” she said the company worked to rebuild the “deprioritized relationship” it had with retailers like Walmart and Dollar General, and underwent a brand refresh, with a new tagline, “There’s more to it.” Its slew of new products has been in development since its new VP of innovation and brand equity, L’Oréal and Unilever vet Rafael Lopes, joined in the fall of 2023.

The Suave brand has been known for offering hair care products largely priced below $5, and Behm said products with refreshed packaging and product claims will maintain their same price point, while some slightly more premium products like its dry shampoo have inched up to $5.99—“still at a value to other players in the marketplace.”

Taking hair of business: One of Suave’s biggest launches was its 2012 Keratin Infusion line that drew comparison to prestige brand Kerastase. For its new products, Suave is aiming to bring back that approach, updating to the ingredients, fragrances, trends, and even the prestige brands consumers are looking for now.

Its new Bonding Infusion women’s hair care line (ranging from $2.99 to $4.99), for example, is inspired by Olaplex’s bond-building products. Suave has conducted claims testing to allow its point-of-sale and digital advertising for the product to highlight this comparison to Olaplex, Behm said.

“If you think about how to quickly move the bar on quality perception for a brand that’s still priced at an opening price point, that’s a really, really strong way to do it,” she said. The company has been using partnerships with influencers to do this too, Behm said, and is also benefiting from the drugstore shampoo renaissance on TikTok, and viral moments for its Ocean Breeze and Clarifying products.

On the women’s side, Suave is also releasing a three-SKU line of dry shampoos, Bamboo & Hibiscus shampoo and conditioner, strawberry-scented body wash, a heat protection shield spray, and 10 new scents of its antiperspirant and deodorant sticks for women.

And this month, for the first time in the history of the brand, Suave will be advertising its men’s products, which make up about 15% of sales, through an ad integration with Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast, Behm said. That’ll be to promote a slew of new men’s launches, including three scents of antiperspirant deodorants, styling cream, pomade, and gel, and a number of 2-in-1 and 3-in-1 wash and care products, an effort to make Suave “relevant and front and center” for men, Behm said.

Up next…Suave acquired ChapStick last year from Tums-owner Haleon, finding a similar story in the lip balm maker that hasn’t received “love and attention that I think the brand deserves” from previous ownership, Behm said. It’ll use the same playbook it’s applying to Suave, including new marketing and innovation, she said, which will start rolling out in the second half of the year.